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Tim Fulton 00:09
Welcome to the Confluence Cast presented by Columbus Underground. We are a weekly Columbus-centric podcast focusing on the civics, lifestyle, entertainment, and people of our city. I’m your host, Tim Fulton. This week. In anticipation of this fall’s election, the confluence cast is endeavoring to introduce Columbus voters to the 12 Council and two mayoral candidates. In their own words, Joe Motil wants your support to become the 54th Mayor of the 14th largest city in America. And he’s going door to door and person to person in a grassroots effort to ask for that support. In today’s interview, Motil talks about his history in central Ohio politics and his campaign platform. You can get more information on what we’ve discussed today in the show notes for this episode at the confluence cast.com. Enjoy the interview. Sitting down here with Joe Motil. candidate for Mayor of the City of Columbus, Joe, how are you sir?
Joe Motil 01:15
I’m doing great. Thanks for having me.
Tim Fulton 01:17
Absolutely. Let’s start off with who are you? And what brings you to your candidacy?
Joe Motil 01:22
Who am i Wow. I am a lifelong resident of Columbus. And I’m one of 11 children on the seventh of 11. And actually, I just briefly want to say a little bit about my family. My father grew up in a mining town in southeastern Ohio, and a two room house with his seven people and eventually made his way up to Columbus. He did live with some foster homes and also at the St. Vincent DePaul orphanage over on East Main Street for a while as did some of his siblings. And he eventually also then would move over to the Grandview Heights area. And that’s where he met my mom who also lived there. My father went to Our Lady victory high school, she went to Grandview high school she was one of the siblings of the famous Eagles candies. Okay, been around for a long, long time. And there’s still one store left. But my grandparents were the original founders of the Eagles candies. And my father after World War Two. He received that like it was a GI bill basically back then he went to engineering school up in Wisconsin, it wasn’t actually to become an engineer, but to learn engineering, okay. And he when he came back, he got into the construction industry and became a carpenter at a local 200 and then eventually worked his way up as to a General Superintendent. And my mother, of course, did not work. Okay to take care of 11 kids. So I, I was actually born in the North London area. That’s where my parents first home was. And I only lived there for less than a year and they moved over to Clintonville. I grew up on Clinton heights between Calumet and Indianola and a fairly good size home. It was four bedrooms, one and a half baths had an entrance for your son room lunch room. It was pretty good sized house for the last 13 People I should say. But it was it was a great neighborhood to live in. And you know, growing up Catholic they were my parents were very devout Catholics. And I went to Immaculate Conception grade school, which is virtually across the street from where I lived on Clinton heights. We just cut through the front yard backyard of the house in front of the school. The people we we knew them very well. They were our neighbors. So it was no big deal. Yeah. And so I went to school there for eight years. I have to mention, I went to kindergarten and Clinton Elementary. But and then went to Waterson for four years and most of my siblings all went to Immaculate Conception. And some of them went to North High School, which was just you know, about 10 blocks down the street, down Calumet. And we were as kids very involved with sports. My dad played sports, and we just grew up playing baseball, basketball and football, the three basic sports a lot of us and during the summertime, I had a brother who actually played division one football at Indiana University played on the state championship team at Waterson High School in 1966. My sister rose, played on the first women’s professional football team in Columbus, the Columbus pacesetters. They used to play at Mohawk go Ron Livingston Avenue, and she also played semi pro professional softball. I played basketball was my favorite sport and I was a walk on at Youngstown State University and a junior varsity. I only went to school there for a year I had to pay my own way so just didn’t have the money. And when I came back, I went to Ohio State for about six weeks. couldn’t stand it. They put me over on West Campus. Okay, I wanted to be where where things were happening on the oval To me that was greenup growing up and seeing Ohio State University. I wanted to go to school on the oval so one of those buildings there and so I really couldn’t stand So the role in the motel house was, if you’re not going to school, you have to leave the house and okay so and get a job and move out. So that was a that was it. So I moved to South Campus, just like a lot of my friends did you know from the Clintonville areas cheap rent, I lived near the corner of West eighth and Hunter. And for eight years there, I shared a one bedroom apartment with mice and bugs. And I was able to save up enough money to buy my first home on East Oakland Avenue. And I actually began my my activism while living on South Campus and, and I’m gonna have to mention his name. Yeah, I like to do this. But I was at the laundromat on Worthington street one day, and this guy comes up to me and he says, he says, Hey, do you live in the neighborhood? And I said, Yeah. And then he started to describe how there were a couple of houses that had just been pretty much renovated new siding and stuff like that just a couple years ago. And apparently, somebody had peeled off the siding with crowbars and stuff and and vandalized the properties. Well, apparently, after, you know, discussion with the gentleman, which happened to have been cleave Rick Sacher, and okay. And a good friend of mine, they’ll say, and he lived on Worthington Street at the time, apparently, the landlord, the owner of the property at hire people to do this, and so that he could justify tearing these structures down and building a larger apartment building. And that was it. It was real close to where I lived. And I said, Yeah, I noticed everything I didn’t know what was going on, and so forth, and so on. So he and either it was his wife or girlfriend at the time, Barb Cooley, who I still know to this day and is a good friend and was a neighbor of mine on East Oakland, I’ll get into that in a second. But they, they were looking for support in the neighborhood, you know, to go down to the building department and talk to some official down there about this. So I went tagged along with them. And that’s kind of like where it got started. And, and I started to notice a lot of different things taking place. And this was close to when I was just about ready to buy my first house anyway, this is probably around 8485. Okay, so I, my first home, I wanted to live stay in the university area, and I would ride my bicycle up and down. East Northwood in East Oakland Avenue. Night, we almost waiting for a for sale sign to pop up. I had no idea I was 30 years old at the time, I had no idea how to buy a house what a reorder, or anything like that. But so when I saw a sign come up, I immediately knocked on the door. And the gentleman was there. And I you know, and he, his father had passed, his mother was going into retirement home, and he was selling the house. And I was like, I will put it on an offer tomorrow, found a reorder, who was a friend of my sisters who she had used in the past. And we worked it out from there, and I made an offer on a house. And it’s interesting that one of the things that he was an attorney and he asked me that he says, Are you going to live here? And I just was puzzled by the question like What do you know, of course, I’m gonna live here. This is right. This is why I want to buy the house. And so I didn’t know why he was asking the question. But I said, Yeah, of course. And I said I work in the construction industry. And this is a fixer upper, I can tell and thanks need to be done inside. You know, a lot of things. You know, the kitchen was old, the carpet was on the floor and blah, blah, blah. But the wood work was just absolutely gorgeous. There were stained glass windows in the house that had three fireplaces, one in the bedroom upstairs to downstairs. It was just an unbelievable home and had a stairwell that led to the kitchen in the back and what have you. So I bought that and bought the house for I think it was $61,900 or something like that 85 And I had saved up enough money I was my rent in 1978, I believe was $90 a month for my one bedroom apartment. And had only increased by the by 1985 to 130. So I was working in the construction industry and had most of the time I was working as a union labor I got into the union in 1981. But I worked for non union, seasonal contractor, concrete contractor contractor for two years prior to that. And that was some pretty tough going to say the least. But anyways, so that was my first time. And I will say this, you know, back in those days. I mean in the late 70s When I lived on South Campus, it was pretty interesting. There was still a widowed woman that lived across the street from us. She was in her 70s There were families there were kids on South Campus. There were people that owned two unit houses and rented one side and lived in the other. I mean it was it was a great neighborhood to really grow up and live in as a renter. and it’s changed, of course, dramatically since but, you know, there were some tough times for me living there when I had to actually, you know, a seasonal work concrete work. I worked from basically April to November. And I’d be on unemployment all winter. And that was tough. And there was a point in my time when I had to file for to receive food stamps for three months. I had a I’ll never forget, I had one of those blue books that used to collect coins with Yeah, and I had Kennedy haves, and and I mean, I treasured this thing. But I had to sell it in order to, you know, pay my rent and hit deposit amounts cash, man, I mean, it was something that I treasured so much, and I was just like, you know, it was it was tough. And so, you know, I, once I got, you know, I’m not blaming the non union job or not making making enough money, but it was seasonal work. So once I got into the laborers union in 91, I was able to work full time at in the commercial construction industry. So, on East Oakland Avenue when I got my house there, I found out this is funny. Here’s Cleve, Rick Secor and Barb Cooley, who live up the street from me. I mean, I’m like, You got to be kidding me. And there’s a lot of professors from OSU and families and kids. We had a daughter at the time that lived there. And she went to medary. Elementary for a couple years and then went to Duxbury Elementary. But so I began getting real involved in a neighborhood there. Barb was involved with Columbus landmarks at the time, and she kind of recruited me to try to get the neighborhood placed on the Columbus Register of Historic Places, the Northwood Park subdivision, which was Northwood Park from Northwood, and Oakland from high to indianola. So, I went, I was the person who went door to door explaining to everybody, you know, the importance of it. And one of the reasons we did this, or she did this was the fact that developers were just tearing down houses left and right in the area. And there were homes on Norwich that people on Northwood would just look at their back of their windows and see see him being torn down. So they were concerned that, you know, the developers are going to hit us next, you know, they’re just going to move north and keep going. So we looked at it in terms of protection from the developers in terms of becoming an historic district and given us some power to stop the, you know, any kind of demolitions of historic homes that we lived in. I mean, it was, I saw beautiful Victorian homes being torn down in the south campus area and all over the place. And so, so anyways, we went, I was wondering, went door to door, we did get placed on the Columbus register, and I ran for a seat on the university area commission, I believe it was in 1988, and won that seat and was the zoning chair during that time as well. And so I got involved with development, zoning code, enforcement issues, things like that I worked directly with code enforcement officers it was, you know, back then, it was a lot different. You know, we use fax machines a lot back then. And I would actually just walk the neighborhood and write down violations and fax them off to the code enforcement officer knew me. And at one point in time, he said, you know, Joe, if it weren’t for you, I wouldn’t have a job. And I mean, and and I would, and I have to admit, you know, I would be real careful about who I would write violations on. And they were mostly going to be developers are people that own rental properties that weren’t taken care of their properties, and not necessarily homeowners, and also businesses on High Street, I would I wouldn’t be, you know, rolling my daughter down the sidewalk in her stroller down high street over just a sidewalk that was just crumbling and crumbling, I was just sick and tired of it. So you know, I was the role involved with the code enforcement issues and things and, and that is also being living so close to total Park Recreation Center. After my three years on the area commission, I decided that I wasn’t going to run again. And I wanted to kind of just concentrate my efforts and things on different on just maybe one thing. So I, a woman who was the head of the tunnel, Park Community Recreation Council, heard me speak at a public meeting about some concerns I had about tunnel Park. So she approached me after the meeting and said, Hey, you should come to one of our meetings, and I did. And she pretty much sucked to me. And I’ve been there ever since 1991. I’ve been the head of the volunteer group for 32 years now. Okay. And so it’s just been a labor of love. You know, even though I don’t live in the campus area anymore. We left in 93 I believe it was who sold the house and moved back to Clintonville. Even to this day, I’m you know, the university area district has always been a part of my life growing up in Clintonville. I mean, I can remember in the 60s, going to the head shops, you know, buying your blacklight posters and walk it through the beads and all that stuff on Pearl ally and all that, you know, I mean, it was just it was part of your life, even as a paperboy. I delivered the citizen journal when when I was in grade school. I can remember riding my bicycle I’m Elaine and Hi, when the Vietnam War riots were taking place, you couldn’t get past lane and hike because they had it blocked off. But I mean, you know, we all knew it was going on. And I just had to go down there and see, you know, what was happening, but they had the street blocked off. You couldn’t go anywhere because of what was going on. But, you know, like I said, it’s just, it’s always been part of my life, the record shops, the bars, the night, nine clubs, and such, even in high school when all those bars used to be down there at Papa Joe’s travel agency and all that kind of stuff. I mean, you know, that was my era.
Tim Fulton 15:30
And it’s an it’s total park that you’re still involved in? Yeah, got it. Yep. Yep.
Joe Motil 15:35
Total has been great. I’ve been through six directors at recreation and parks. And what we finally did sometime in mid 90s, I think it was, we asked the City of Columbus, if we could charge for parking for the OSU football games, because its prime location. You know, varsity clubs, right up the street on Norwich there. The stadium is two blocks away. And so one of the CRC members suggested and we were like, yeah, why not? Let’s see what happens. So we asked him, they gave us the Go ahead. We parked some cars up near the Rec Center, we were charging like five bucks. And we made a little bit of money and, and then we, you know, began to talk about it more and decided to use both parking lots, the one that was by behind what was then the old Holiday Inn on lane. And so that lower parking lot as we refer to it, and then we started parking cars, and both lots. And it became a pretty, really good fundraiser a few years after we got things organized and what have you. And we were never out to like gouge the people. We were just out to make some money that would go directly back into the Rec Center. Yeah, and similar
Tim Fulton 16:43
to a PTA doing stuff, but you know,
Joe Motil 16:47
exactly, and it worked out great. And, to this day, we’re still doing it. I think this is our 20 It’s either our 26th or 27th year that we’ve actually done this fundraiser, and we’ve probably raised, I’m just guessing somewhere between 400,000 and maybe half a million. That’s great. And the money has gone directly back into the park. I mean, when people you that are familiar with Tuttle go down there and you see you see benches and you see receptacles and you see murals and and other things and that was all funded through through our fundraising got a lot of in all the the maintenance and things like that, that are done on the gardens. There’s a pollinator garden, Memorial Garden, butterfly garden, you know, all that stuff. That’s all funded through our CRC group. And, and now, the CRC has, they’re no longer in existence. And we’re kind of tied in which with the Columbus Recreation and Parks Foundation, got it? Oh, we’re now the Friends of total Park, and 30% of our proceeds for our fund raising now go towards what’s called the Play program. Okay, play is designed to help fund for children and teens that can’t afford to get into programs that cost money, the fees there. So that helps provide the fee so they get 30% of our fundraising, which which is fine. It’s worked out well. We we actually used to provide funds to play just on our own. But now that things have changed they we kind of haggle a little bit about the 30 versus what’s a lot. So we say, well, wait a minute, you know, how about 20, but they wouldn’t budge, we had to settle for the 30. But it’s been great. We just we got a skatepark that was just put in a couple two years ago. Now. I think it’s been almost a year and a half. Unfortunately, though, things move so slow and Wrexham parks that skatepark took six years to go in. Okay. And I’m not going to get into too much of the detail about there’s there are some sore spots with that, but it just took too long. And, you know, being a big proponent of recreation and parks as they actually part of my campaign to okay, I mean, it’s like I have witnessed that budget gets slashed and slashed and slashed over the decades. I mean, it used to be one of the Cadillac departments of the City of Columbus, back when Mel dodge and people have heard of dodge Park Well, well, darts was a director who, who really got money flowing into the Recreation and Parks system. And I think that just the fact that that budget has been slashed so much has really had an impact on a lot of things that are taking place now in the city. So
Tim Fulton 19:28
bring us up a little bit to where you’re at in terms of your activism and other sort of projects like that and how it leads directly into your candidacy.
Joe Motil 19:37
Sure. So what when I got involved when I was on the commission and started to understand the politics of the city in the area commissions in this, that and the other. You know, I was going to meetings representing the University area on zoning issues, variances and such. I just, I was infuriated with the fact that it just seemed like City Council would never listen to us. is the same old thing. It’s like, and people, you know, on the area commission, they would work with counsel and folks, but I’m just like, to me, it was like, they’re not doing anything for us. They’re ignoring us. Why are you even working with these people? And I thought the only way I’m going to make a difference is if I’m sitting in one of those seven seats up there in that city council chambers. So in 1995, I decided that I was in 94, actually decided that I was going to run for city council. I had no idea what I was going to get into in terms of running for public office, I had never had any intentions of running for public office. It’s interesting, though. I was at a fundraiser once in the around 1993. And former State Rep. Mike stinziano, who is the auditors Father, we knew each other real well, actually, his ex wife lived two houses from me on Oakland. He, we were talking once in he said to me, he said, Joe, he goes, he meant he said, one of these days, when you run for office, this is going to be something that you’re going to have to do or something and I looked at him like what are you talking about? Like I have no intentions of running for office. But he obviously saw something in me in in terms of the type of person I was and my activism and my outspokenness, and such at the time, so I decided to run in 95. And in that election, and it was an unexpired term. And there were people in the Democratic Party that actually, that knew me personally and knew my family. But I didn’t know a lot of the politicians, so to speak, that were involved with the Franklin County Democratic Party, the chair, Danny white at the time, or any of those people, but some of the people that knew me, you know, went to him and said, Yeah, we know that guy, blah, blah, blah, know, his family, so forth and so on. So of course, they didn’t want me to run it was Lisa Griffin was the appointed city council member at the time. John Kennedy was president. She was pretty much it’s safe to say she was handpicked by Kennedy. The council president typically had that power and authority and did so. You know, they had you know, other people threw their hat in the ring. I believe Lynne Greer was one of them. Who was thought she had a chance. And she had some people behind her on city council, but council president had the pretty much the votes. So anyways, back then, during that election, I needed you needed 17 107 signatures to get on the ballot. Okay, it was a percentage, you know, it’s not like the of the population are elected. Yeah, right. So, so I had I drummed up 20 404 signatures to get on the ballot. And the Republicans also ran a candidate Peggy Fisher, she was the head of the Northland Community Council at the time, and she was really not really involved in politics or anything at all. Okay, but Greg Hill Shopko was mayor. And the electorate was much different back in 1995. That was 28 years ago. So there was still Republican officeholders in Columbus and such on city council, county commissioners and so forth. And even though the County, Franklin County Democratic Party tried to persuade me not to run, I said, Now I’m running, you know, I don’t care what you say, and, and I asked some good friends of mine who were involved with the party, I said, What’s going to happen? They said, Joe, they’re going to hate you. Because they’re afraid, they’ll be afraid that you’re going to take away votes, and she could lose. And I said, whatever. But I said, I’m running, I don’t care. And so I ran, and Lisa Griffin, bless her heart anyways, I she, I have a lot great deal respect for. But she, she was a concert, she had her own consulting firm. And at the time, total mall was being built out there on the west side. And she represented, I believe it was Edwards company who was the developer for total Mall. And she also was a consultant for the New Albany company. And New Albany was trying to merge with plain township at the time. So she was the spokesperson for both of those groups. And she was considered the face of evil to those communities and those neighbors out there near Tuttle mall and out New Albany. So she would, you know, be the one that attended the meetings and such and speak and like her, and they all everybody felt she was just in the bed with the developers. So anyways, I’m getting phone calls from people that I don’t even know. I mean, it’s like out of the blue, like, we’re so glad you’re running blah, blah, blah, we want to help you with your campaign. And I’m like, you know, who and who do I trust and what have you and it was, it was really very interesting to see what happened and, and I’m just going to throw this out there to let people know there was actually somebody who approached me. I had no idea who he was. He wouldn’t tell me his name. He said his name was Sam. Okay, and it was a fictitious name. It was almost like Deep Throat Okay, I mean, it was like he would call the house and, and one of my kids would answer, you know, they’re like, 810 years old, he talked to him on the phone and, and they’d say, Dad, Sam, you know, what’s the thought? Right? So we, you know, he would, he was one of my mentors, and I finally, near the end of the election, he finally told me who he was and such. And it was, it was pretty interesting, but you’re not gonna, I’m not gonna say who you are, you have to read my memoirs. Fair, fair. But he was very involved with politics and such. And he knew what was going on. And he was involved with the media and talk to him and stuff. So it was he really taught me a lot in terms of campaigning and what needs to be done and the issues and so forth and so on. So, so, anyways, election time comes around in November, and Griffin loses, okay, by 8000 votes. I get 11,000. Okay, so Peggy Fisher, the Republican Party, they saw that, you know, Motilal could be spoiler in this. So they pumped a ton of money into her race, and La Shakur was mayor. And you know, of course, he got a hold of his connections in the city and in the media, I mean, during the campaign, also, Griffith actually accepted a contract with the airport out of Columbus airport, and it was for and she was gonna get paid $165 an hour for it. And that was like headlines in the paper. And we may and Fisher both just jumped all over it. Yeah. And she actually had to, she turned it down after, after a few weeks, because she was catching so much flak. I mean, it really worked bad. Well, but
Tim Fulton 26:39
and you just bring it forward, you can see that I think in some of the campaigning that you’re doing now, right. Oh, latching on to, hey, this is frankly, fucked up. This is not great how this is going down. And there’s a person we can put in front of it. And here’s what I would do differently. Yep. Yeah.
Joe Motil 26:57
You made, you made the connections back then the guy that was helping me, Sam, he, I mean, he had me looking at campaign finance reports and, and things like that. And then I began to get a good understanding in terms of who’s financing the campaigns, finding the connections between the companies, the corporations, the developers, the big money, who the players are, you know, I learned all that early on, you know, just 28 years ago. And so you can imagine where it’s gone from there. I know where the bodies are buried. So, so anyways, yeah, after that campaign. You know, no, the media, of course, would not say that, you know, Moto was responsible for this election loss. That’s the last time a city council incumbent lost an election. Yeah, by the way. So, you know, I moved on, and people in the Franklin County Democratic Party saw me as a potential asset for the party. So I wanted to run for state rep in 1996, immediately after in my district, which was kinda like Clinton, Hill, Worthington, Arlington, Linden, and it was basically like, 6535, Republican, EJ Thomas was the state rep at that time. And there was a 18 year old from Worthington high school that was going to run and they would not they said, No, you can’t, we’re going to what? We’re going to endorse this guy.
Tim Fulton 28:16
And I’m, we’re gonna let the kid take a fall, basically, yeah. Okay.
Joe Motil 28:20
And I’m like, You got to be kidding me. I said, my name is fresh from the council race, blah, blah, blah. And they said, Joe, you know, it’s same old crap party politics, you’ll get your turn. Yep. So 98 came around, and they said, Okay, we’re gonna, we’ll we’ll look at, you know, they’re not going to, you know, they said, you know, run a 98. You know, your time will come. And I’ll never forget, you know, Rich Cordray was like the head of the committee. And I told him, you know, okay, 98 time comes around, blah, blah, blah. There I am. So a 98. EJ Thomas was going to be term limited. That’s when term limits in the statehouse first began. Yep. So I was like, this is perfect. He actually lived in old Beach, Wald at the time, and I was living in Clintonville. I was living over on Wall Hall ravine, we had a very small 1100 square foot cottage. That was a fixer upper. That’s where we moved to after we moved from East Oakland. Yeah. And so I won the endorsement. It was a fight, because there was there was a group of people that were trying to take it from me and give it to somebody else. But I had to struggle for it. And, sorry, this is for state rep State Rep. Yeah. And so I’ll never forget Jennifer Brunner, was was in I think she was the chair of the committee at the time. And I went to her law office, she called me up and told me Hey, you’re we’re endorsing you. So that was prior to the committee, the full vote of the Central Committee and such but right, so they I had their support. So it was a done deal. And I and I was endorsed the election, it was great. I mean, I really enjoyed it. I was involved with, you know, State House issues at the time is Well, city, you know, I understand what was going on. And being a union member and things, there was a lot of bills and things that were being pushed at the Statehouse in terms of union activity and what have you. I did pretty well, I got 41% of the vote, okay. People were like, You gotta be kidding me. And I kept telling them during my election that look, I know, I can do real well and Clintonville. I said, that’s, that’s my base. And so nobody had received 41% of the vote ever, that I’d run against EJ Thomas, with the exception of one candidate who raised a quarter of a million dollars. And she was from Worthington. And she, I believe she was either on the school board or city council woman at the time, so she had pretty good name recognition. But other than that, I was the top vote getter out of I think it was, you know, seven elections that he had actually faced, so I did pretty well. So, you know, they said, you know, this is great. I wanted to run again in 2000. He’s term limited. They said, Okay, 2000 comes from my friend Mark hatch, who actually lived on Northwood, but I lived on Oakland, and we knew each other real well. He was on the area commission universitari commission at the time, and then back then, and then he was the school board president during 2000. Well, Mark said he wanted to run and it was just like, you know, so they endorsed patch in the primary. Okay, he’s I tried to get him not to endorse anybody. But you know, that’s the way it goes in politics, there are always going to endorse the the person and the primary and right, they shouldn’t, but they did. And you know, Mark’s name was on a sample ballot. So that was the end of it. Yep, pretty much. And a couple years after that. They said, Well, Joe, you should run for school board and get name recognition, and this, that and the other. And I’m like, you know, you should do this. And you should do that. And I said, this isn’t for me. I’m not going to sell my soul to you people, you’re not going to tell them when to run, what to run for how to you know how to think and so forth. So about 2002 or so I got out of the party politics, okay. You know, and in somebody’s feet, else, it’s been a several years ago, Judge Eileen Paley, she was really involved back then with me, we knew each other real well, we were friends. And she was working her way up the ladder at the time back in 2000. and such, and we’ve met at an event and she said, she, you know, Joe, I like it. She goes, but you know, you went to the dark side. Just jokingly, you know, and I smile. And I said, you know, Eileen, I like it there. That’s where and, you know, we laughed, and we’re still we’re all friends, you know? Yeah, in everybody. I respect everybody’s, you know, in politics and the way they think and such, but, you know, it’s politics, it is what it is. So, ever since then, I’ve been out there kind of just, you know, speaking my mind and being outspoken about the issues, and not following the party, you know, in terms of, you know, I’m not part of the party machine anymore, right. And that’s fine with me, because that’s allowed me to be more candid, and to express myself in terms of how I feel about the issues. And I’m not somebody, you know, I do my homework. I do my research. I understand the the issues at hand. I ran in 2003 I believe it was for city council primary and even got endorsed by the Columbus Dispatch. Some people said, that’s probably why you lost you. But now it was, you know, I was like, Well, I was shocked to be honest with you, I thought, oh, my gosh, they endorsed me, and this is great. And then I think it was 2000 I ran for as a write in a few times, just to challenge candidates, you know, at candidate advance and such. And I ran, I was on the ballot again, and 2029 2009, I believe was a primary and then 2019 for city council, and then this race for mayor. So I’ve been on the ballot six times. This is not your first rodeo, including state rep. So actually official candidate six times on the ballot in 28 years. And that’s not as much as my opponent.
Tim Fulton 34:15
Trying to keep it high level given given our timing. Why are you running for mayor? You know, and I do I do want to preface this by saying your issue areas and your platform are available at your website. We can hit on the high level, but you’re running against an incumbent. Why are you running for mayor?
Joe Motil 34:35
Yeah, you know, everything I’ve talked about, you know, is pretty much prepared me for this. And I think it’s been kind of a gradual, you know, evolution into, you know, what I’ve been doing having run for state rep Council and now mayor, and I’m one of the things that probably drives me is that I know so much about how it works. Okay, and And it’s it’s it that’s what drives me and who and why things get done. And I don’t see things getting done that really pertained to the working class and low to moderate income people, I see just the rich, the powerful special interest that developers, corporations, institutions here in Columbus, that are the primary, you know, ones that are benefiting from city tax dollars and such. It’s, it’s, it’s almost like everything being done in this city, nearly everything is to enhance and protect the investments of the rich and powerful in this city, and why things get done. And that’s what drives me. It’s just, you know, I know why and who, and I continue to fight it. And I mean, I’m continuing to fight for the people in the neighborhoods of the city. And that’s just not a stump speech. That’s the facts. And people know that I get contacted by people all across the city to ask for my help. I don’t know who these people are. And they call me or somebody called them and said you should talk to Jomo till you should see if he can help you. He you know, because he understands this, and he can get you through the process and do what he can to help. And I always have, and I mean, whether it’s the west side, whether it’s recently like the Greyhound bus station, or the little turtle mall, road, little turtle roadway project. Yeah, I mean development projects across the city, I’m still involved with things that take place in the university area. They call me up, you know, even though it’s still involved in total park, but developments a big issue of mine, I’ve worked in the construction industry retired now, but for 40 years, and I worked as a labor union labor for 24. And as a construction safety manager for 14. So I have a very good understanding in terms of, you know, what it’s like to work as a blue collar worker, I raised my two kids working as a union labor. And then fortunately enough, I landed a job in safety, and worked on five projects that were all over $100 million, where I spent two to three years on one of them the most expensive one. And last one was the Mount Carmel Grove City Hospital, which is a $355 billion project. I was in charge of safety at that job. I had a 535 workers on there at one time. But so I’ve had a taste of what it’s like to work as a blue collar worker. And as a white collar worker, I’ve I’ve sat at tables with engineers, architects, owners, CEOs, presidents, in meetings, nearly on a weekly basis at you know, on construction sites, our team out at Mount Carmel, Grove City was probably 30 people, you know, and I worked at the, you know, I was in charge of safety at the double Methodist Hospital, the convention center remodeling and renovation project for nine months. The large project for Patel out in West Jefferson, a large dorm project at Ohio University, I worked over at the Student Union for Ohio State University. I mean, you know, so I understand construction, I understand development, things of that nature. And I understand, you know, as a, as an artist, and musician, and athlete, you know, that’s, that’s really I think, contributed to forming my views and my life, you know, socially and economically having been able to interact with different people from different social and economic background. And that’s helped me tremendously to understand, you know, what I do and, and whose needs are, you know, what, what needs people need and, and so forth.
Tim Fulton 38:29
Do you feel like having operated outside of the system for so long, you’d have difficulty not governing? Outside of the system outside? Have you haven’t been in city government?
Joe Motil 38:39
Oh, well, I think I understand city government pretty well. I mean, I’ve actually probably been involved with almost every city department at some point in time in my life. So yeah, I mean, you know, seriously, it’s Department of Development, whether it’s code enforcement, the RECs and parks, I mean, numerous departments I’ve been involved with. So I understand how city government works.
Tim Fulton 39:03
There you go. Yeah. And folks can learn more about your platform and the initiatives that you’d like to accomplish as mayor, on your website, and that’ll be linked in the show notes for this episode, I guess, to get to the beginning of the end of this interview. Can you is there more that you’d like folks to know, the listeners of this podcast and Columbus underground, specifically?
Joe Motil 39:28
Sure. And that website is Joe motel.com. Pretty simple. But you know, and I read unite Columbus underground, I did it on my email server and such. And, you know, I know what a lot of the concerns and issues are pertaining to those that are listening to this. And I just want people to know especially like affordable housing. You know, I’ve heard people mentioned we’re gonna say things about me and the fact that I’m against density and this that and the other and I just want people to know that no, I am not against density. My my issue has always been in my field. thinks about density has always been about where and how much. I mean, I’m, you know, I am not opposed. I am opposed to like 13 storey buildings that lane in high and things like that, that are inappropriate for the character of certain neighborhoods. But I am not against high density, I’m not against building doubles, and four unit buildings and secondary streets and things like that ad use and what have you. So again, I just, I think there’s some issues on my website that can address that. And people can also go there and ask me comments about it. Some of the other things, like, I am an avid bicyclist, as many people know, and some people don’t. But I’ve been riding a bicycle, since I was 18 years old, used to ride to work and things of that nature and continue to ride. And I do believe and protected bike lanes, and I understand it, I get it. And I want to, you know, do you know incorporate more and more protected bike lanes in the city, we’re not doing a good enough job with that. Parking lots empty parking lots, I hear that to be a lot of concerns in the downtown area and what to do with them. And I agree that you know, we should be building on them. But the problem with building and building more and more downtown on these empty parking lots, we’re putting the cart before the horse because we do not have transit in this city that’s worth a darn, I’m sorry, but it’s mediocre at best. So if we’re going to build on these empty parking lots, let’s get our transit system together beforehand. Because where are these people going to park that work in these buildings if we don’t have proper chance. And I’d also see a lot we’d like to see some of these empty parking lots turned into parks. And that would be for instance, the city purchasing the land and turning it into green space. You know, the, the climate change is just you know, it’s we have one of the worst cities in the United States in terms of heat island effect, air pollution, canopy coverage is 22%. I mean, we can do a lot better in terms of growing trees around the city of Columbus, I see empty tree boxes up and down High Street all over the place. And I keep hearing how we’re going to grow, grow more and more trees, but I don’t see it happening we need to do I can do a lot better job in terms of working as mayor of the city to make sure that you know, there’s better tree canopy coverage. It’s just not being done. And I’m sorry, but I don’t see it happening under our current mayor. The those are just a few of the things. And as some of you know, I’m very active with the homelessness as well. They invited me to some encampments, about two years ago. Some of the homeless advocates to see firsthand what’s going on in these encampments and such, and I’ve learned a tremendous amount in terms of, you know, what needs to be done to help our homeless and I have a housing initiative Housing First initiative on my website that I hope people that that will go to and and read more about that, and read about my affordable housing initiatives. It’s nothing compared to what the city is proposing, we need a steady stream of revenue to address our affordable housing crisis. And that’s addressed on my website as well, in terms of increasing the hotel motel tax for the Affordable Housing Trust Fund from 8.43% to 25%. The city has been sitting on AARP funds for over two years, 187 million, that number has gone down quite a bit, but it’s unconscionable that they haven’t spent any of that money in terms of to buy affordable housing units. And my plan is on there as well. There’s a lot more that we can be doing that we you know, close partnership, I said should create their own Affordable Housing Trust Fund. Why aren’t they the 80 richest corporations and developers in the city of Columbus? Are you our central hire? Are you kidding me? They should have their own trust fund. I it just burns me when I read like in the news the other day Franklinton you know, 10 affordable housing units. I mean, so what are you kidding me? What is 10 units? If the Columbus Downtown Development Corporation actually wants to do something about affordable housing, then let’s put 200 units on the side on a peninsula. I mean, I hear the word NIMBY being tossed around all the time by people saying, you know, Joe Till’s a NIMBY, this person is a NIMBY. It looks to me like some of the corporations are members and some of these big developers are members, why aren’t they building a lot of affordable housing units in places like the side of the peninsula, and, you know, more and more, you know, 10 units here 20 units there, set aside units for tax abatements isn’t getting it done? I’m sorry, but it’s, you know, it’s counterproductive for the tax abatements and such, that’s meager in terms of the amount of affordable housing units that we truly need. And when we’re saying affordable housing, we’re talking 60% Ami for people making $40,000 and less so think about that, too. When you read my website. I know I’m gonna I could go on and on about this. But please just, you know, take a look at my website, everybody. It’s it’s very extensive. It doesn’t cover a hunt. percent of my platform, but it’s probably covers about 80% of it. So if you have comments or questions, you can make those comments and questions and email them to me. And I’ll read them. And I’ll get back to you. Well, I
Tim Fulton 45:11
was gonna say, I bet you’re willing to talk about it. And I end every interview with two questions. What do you think Columbus is doing? Well, and what do you think Columbus is doing? Not so well?
Joe Motil 45:24
Why what is Columbus doing? Well, well, they’re getting jobs. I mean, we’re we are, you know, people are coming to the city. And we’re expanding our, you know, economically, and financially. But the problem is, it’s not trickling down. It’s only going to certain people, and we’re protecting those investments. And if we continue to build, like market rate housing, for basically, it’s for the labor pool of corporate Columbus and institutions, it’s just going to get worse, homelessness is getting worse. evictions are by the dozens every day. And if we, we sure everybody says we need to build and build more houses. I don’t disagree with that. But it’s never going to catch up in terms of providing truly affordable housing with the more housing we’re going to build. If somebody can tell me when that’s going to happen. I’d like to hear your number because I don’t think it’s going to happen. I think it’s five to 10 years away. And what are we going to do in the meantime, sure, we can keep building and building and building and all the market rate housing that’s being built, the Job Center is going to be saturated with market rate housing, and people that truly need to live near the Job Center. So they don’t have to live 20 miles away or 15 miles away. You know, they’re not going to have housing. So we need to create more truly affordable housing near the job centers. And I think it as mayor, that again, I have said this on the record that I want to buy property, put out an RFP to a nonprofit organization, housing, and let’s build it in the in the core area of the city. So there’s a lot of those lots around, and we could do that on. And we need to do more of it. If we’re if we’re really going to do something about providing affordable housing in our job centers in these desirable neighborhoods, because sooner or later, it’s going to become unaffordable for everybody. Joe, thanks
Tim Fulton 47:17
for your time.
Joe Motil 47:18
Thank you. I appreciate it. It’s great.
Tim Fulton 47:31
Thank you for listening to the confluence cast presented by Columbus underground. Again, you can get more information on what we discussed today in the show notes for this episode at the confluence cast.com Please rate, subscribe, share this episode of The confluence cast with your friends, family contacts, enemies, your favorite advocate. If you’re interested in sponsoring the confluence cast get in touch with us. We can be reached by email at info at the confluence cast.com Our theme music was composed by Benji Robinson, our producers Phil Cogley, I’m your host, Tim Fulton. Have a great week.
