Candidate Joe Motil

Tim Fulton 00:09Welcome 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 theconfluencecast.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 01:15I'm doing great. Thanks for having me.

Tim Fulton 01:17Absolutely. Let's start off with, who are you, and what brings you to your candidacy?

Joe Motil 01:22Who am I? Wow. I am a lifelong resident of Columbus. And I'm one of 11 children — I'm 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, in a two-room house with seven people, and eventually made his way up to Columbus. He did live with some foster homes, and also at the St. Vincent de Paul orphanage over on East Main Street for a while, as did some of his siblings. And he eventually 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 of Victory High School; she went to Grandview High School. She was one of the siblings of the famous Eagle's Candies — been around for a long, long time, and there's still one store left. But my grandparents were the original founders of Eagle's Candies. And my father, after World War Two, he received — 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. And 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 to a General Superintendent. And my mother, of course, did not work, to take care of 11 kids. So I was actually born in the North Linden 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, in a fairly good-sized home. It was four bedrooms, one and a half baths, had an entrance, a sunroom, a mudroom. It was a pretty good-sized house for us, the last 13 people, I should say. But it was a great neighborhood to live in. And, you know, growing up Catholic — 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. We knew them very well, they were our neighbors, so it was no big deal. And so I went to school there for eight years. I have to mention, I went to kindergarten at Clinton Elementary. And then I went to Watterson 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, during the summertime. I had a brother who actually played Division One football at Indiana University, played on the state championship team at Watterson 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, on Livingston Avenue. And she also played semi-pro professional softball. Basketball was my favorite sport, and I was a walk-on at Youngstown State University, on the junior varsity. I only went to school there for a year — I had to pay my own way, so I 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. I wanted to be where things were happening, on the Oval. To me, that was — growing up and seeing Ohio State University, I wanted to go to school on the Oval, in one of those buildings there. And so I really couldn't stand it. So the rule in the Motil house was, if you're not going to school, you have to leave the house and get a job and move out. So 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 8th 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 activism while living on South Campus. 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, "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 vandalized the properties. Well, apparently, after discussion with the gentleman — which happened to have been Cleve Ricksecker, okay, a good friend of mine, I'll say — and he lived on Worthington Street at the time — apparently the landlord, the owner of the property, had hired people to do this, 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." So he, and either 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 — 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 tagged along with them. And that's kind of like where it got started. 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 was probably around '84, '85. So my first home — I wanted to stay in the university area, and I would ride my bicycle up and down East Northwood and East Oakland Avenue at night, 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 realtor was, or anything like that. But when I saw a sign come up, I immediately knocked on the door, and the gentleman was there. His father had passed, his mother was going into a retirement home, and he was selling the house. And I was like, "I will put in an offer tomorrow." Found a realtor, who was a friend of my sister's who she had used in the past, and we worked it out from there, and I made an offer on the house. And it's interesting, one of the things — he was an attorney, and he asked me, he says, "Are you going to live here?" And I was just puzzled by the question, like, "What? Of course I'm gonna live here. 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 work in the construction industry, and this is a fixer-upper, I can tell things need to be done inside." You know, the kitchen was old, the carpet was on the floor and blah, blah, blah. But the woodwork was just absolutely gorgeous. There were stained glass windows in the house, it had three fireplaces — one in the bedroom upstairs, two downstairs. It was just an unbelievable home, and had a stairwell that led to the kitchen in the back. So I bought that house for, I think it was $61,900, or something like that, in '85. And I had saved up enough money — my rent in 1978, I believe, was $90 a month for my one-bedroom apartment, and it had only increased by 1985 to $130. So I was working in the construction industry, and most of the time I was working as union labor — I got into the union in 1981. But I worked for a non-union, seasonal concrete contractor for two years prior to that. And that was some pretty tough going, to say the least. But anyways, that was my first home. 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 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, 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 to receive food stamps for three months. I had — I'll never forget — I had one of those blue books that you used to collect coins with, and I had Kennedy halves, and I treasured this thing. But I had to sell it in order to pay my rent and to get deposit amounts, cash. I mean, it was something that I treasured so much, and I was just like, you know, it was tough. And so, once I got — I'm not blaming the non-union job for not 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 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 Ricksecker 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 Duxberry Elementary. So I began getting real involved in the 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 was the person who went door to door, explaining to everybody 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 out the back of their windows and see being torn down. So they were concerned that, you know, the developers are going to hit us next, 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 a historic district and giving us some power to stop any kind of demolitions of historic homes. I mean, I saw beautiful Victorian homes being torn down in the South Campus area, and all over the place. And so, anyways, we 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, a lot different — we used 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. He 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 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, or people that own rental properties that weren't taking care of their properties, and not necessarily homeowners — and also businesses on High Street. I would be, you know, rolling my daughter down the sidewalk in her stroller down High Street over just a sidewalk that was crumbling and crumbling, and I was just sick and tired of it. So, you know, I was really involved with the code enforcement issues. And then, also, being living so close to Tuttle 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 just concentrate my efforts on maybe one thing. So a woman who was the head of the Tuttle Park Community Recreation Council heard me speak at a public meeting about some concerns I had about Tuttle 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 stuck to me. And I've been there ever since 1991. I've been the head of the volunteer group for 32 years now. 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, sold the house and moved back to Clintonville — even to this day, 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 black-light posters, and walking through the beads and all that stuff on Pearl Alley. I mean, it was just part of your life. Even as a paperboy, I delivered the Citizen-Journal when I was in grade school. I can remember riding my bicycle to Lane and High when the Vietnam War riots were taking place. You couldn't get past Lane and High, because they had it blocked off. But we all knew what was going on, and I just had to go down there and see what was happening. But they had the street blocked off, you couldn't go anywhere, because of what was going on. But, like I said, it's just always been part of my life — the record shops, the bars, the nightclubs and such, even in high school, when all those bars used to be down there, at Papa Joe's, the Travel Agency, and all that kind of stuff. I mean, you know, that was my era.

Tim Fulton 15:30And it's Tuttle Park that you're still involved in? Yeah, got it.

Joe Motil 15:35Tuttle's been great. I've been through six directors at Recreation and Parks. And what we finally did, sometime in the mid-'90s, I think it was — we asked the City of Columbus if we could charge for parking for the OSU football games, because it's a prime location. You know, the Varsity Club is right up the street on Norwich there, the stadium is two blocks away. And so one of the CRC members suggested it, and we were like, "Yeah, why not? Let's see what happens." So we asked them, 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 then we began to talk about it more and decided to use both parking lots — the one that was behind what was then the old Holiday Inn on Lane, and then that lower parking lot, as we refer to it. And we started parking cars in both lots. And it became a really good fundraiser a few years after we got things organized. And we were never out to gouge the people. We were just out to make some money that would go directly back into the Rec Center.

Tim Fulton 16:43Yeah. And similar to a PTA doing stuff, but, you know —

Joe Motil 16:47Exactly. And it worked out great. And to this day, we're still doing it. I think this is 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 that are familiar with Tuttle go down there, and you see benches, and you see receptacles, and you see murals and other things, that was all funded through our fundraising. And all 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 is funded through our CRC group. And now, the CRCs are no longer in existence, and we're kind of tied in with the Columbus Recreation and Parks Foundation, got it. So we're now the Friends of Tuttle Park, and 30% of our proceeds from our fundraising now go towards what's called the PLAY program. PLAY is designed to help fund 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 is fine, it's worked out well. We actually used to provide funds to PLAY just on our own, but now that things have changed, we kind of haggled a little bit about the 30 versus — we said, "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 got a skatepark that was put in a couple years ago — now I think it's been almost a year and a half. Unfortunately, though, things move so slow in Recreation and Parks, that skatepark took six years to go in. And I'm not going to get into too much of the detail, there are some sore spots with that, but it just took too long. And, you know, being a big proponent of Recreation and Parks — it's actually part of my campaign too. I mean, I have witnessed that budget get 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 — people have heard of Dodge Park — well, Dodge was a director 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.

Tim Fulton 19:28Bring 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 19:37Sure. So, when I got involved, when I was on the commission, and started to understand the politics of the city and the area commissions and this, that, and the other — you know, I was going to meetings representing the university area on zoning issues, variances and such. I just was infuriated with the fact that it just seemed like City Council would never listen to us. It's the same old thing. And people, you know, on the area commission, they would work with council 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 1994, actually, I 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, around 1993, and former State Rep. Mike Stinziano, who is the auditor's father — we knew each other real well, actually, his ex-wife lived two houses from me on Oakland. He said to me, he said, "Joe, one of these days, when you run for office, this is going to be something that you're going to have to do." And I looked at him like, "What are you talking about? I have no intentions of running for office." But he obviously saw something in me 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, it was an unexpired term. And there were people in the Democratic Party that actually 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, Dennis White at the time, or any of those people. But some of the people that knew me 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 who 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, other people threw their hat in the ring — I believe Lynne Greer was one of them, who thought she had a chance. And she had some people behind her on city council, but the council president had pretty much the votes. So anyways, back then, during that election, you needed 1,707 signatures to get on the ballot. It was a percentage, you know, it's not like — of the population that are elected. So I drummed up 2,404 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 involved in politics or anything at all. But Greg Lashutka was mayor. And the electorate was much different back in 1995 — that was 28 years ago. So there were still Republican officeholders in Columbus, on city council, county commissioners, and so forth. And even though the Franklin County Democratic Party tried to persuade me not to run, I said, "No, I'm running, I don't care what you say." 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'll be afraid that you're going to take away votes, and she could lose." And I said, "Whatever, I'm running, I don't care." And so I ran. And Lisa Griffin, bless her heart — I have a great deal of respect for her. But she was a consultant, she had her own consulting firm. And at the time, Tuttle Mall was being built out there on the west side, and she represented, I believe it was Edwards Companies, who was the developer for Tuttle 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 in New Albany. So she would be the one that attended the meetings and such, and everybody felt she was just in 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, "Who do I trust?" And it was really very interesting to see what happened. 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, it was a fictitious name. It was almost like Deep Throat. I mean, he would call the house, and one of my kids would answer — you know, they're like, eight, 10 years old, they'd talk to him on the phone — and they'd say, "Dad, Sam." Right? So he was one of my mentors, and finally, near the end of the election, he told me who he was. And 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 talked to them and stuff. So he really taught me a lot in terms of campaigning, and what needs to be done, and the issues. So, anyways, election time comes around in November, and Griffin loses, okay, by 8,000 votes. I get 11,000. So Peggy Fisher, the Republican Party, they saw that, you know, Motil could be a spoiler in this. So they pumped a ton of money into her race, and Lashutka was mayor. And, of course, he got a hold of his connections in the city and in the media. I mean, during the campaign, also, Griffin actually accepted a contract with the airport, out at Columbus airport, and she was gonna get paid $165 an hour for it. And that was, like, headlines in the paper. And me and Fisher both just jumped all over it. And she actually had to turn it down after a few weeks, because she was catching so much flak. I mean, it really worked bad for her.

Tim Fulton 26:39And you just bring it forward, you can see that, I think, in some of the campaigning that you're doing now, right? 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."

Joe Motil 26:57You made the connections back then — the guy that was helping me, Sam. I mean, he had me looking at campaign finance reports, 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, just 28 years ago. And so you can imagine where it's gone from there. I know where the bodies are buried. So, anyways, after that campaign — the media, of course, would not say that Motil was responsible for this election loss. That's the last time a city council incumbent lost an election, 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 kind of like Clinton, Hill, Worthington, Arlington, Linden. And it was basically like 65-35 Republican. E.J. Thomas was the state rep at that time. And there was an 18-year-old from Worthington High School that was going to run, and they said, "No, you can't, we're going to endorse this guy."

Tim Fulton 28:16And I'm — "We're gonna let the kid take a fall," basically. Yeah.

Joe Motil 28:20And 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'll look at, you know — run in '98, your time will come." And I'll never forget, Rich Cordray was like the head of the committee. And I told him, okay, '98 time comes around. There I am. So, '98, E.J. Thomas was going to be term-limited — that's when term limits in the statehouse first began. So I was like, "This is perfect." He actually lived in Old Beechwold at the time, and I was living in Clintonville — I was living over on Walhalla Ravine, we had a very small 1,100-square-foot cottage that was a fixer-upper. That's where we moved to after we moved from East Oakland. And so I won the endorsement. It was a fight, because 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, I think, the chair of the committee at the time. And I went to her law office — she called me up and told me, "Hey, we're endorsing you." So that was prior to the full vote of the Central Committee, but I had their support, so it was a done deal. And I was endorsed. The election, it was great. I really enjoyed it. I was involved with, you know, statehouse issues at the time as well, city issues, I understood what was going on. And being a union member, there were 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. People were like, "You gotta be kidding me." And I kept telling them during my election, "Look, I know I can do real well in Clintonville. That's my base." And nobody had received 41% of the vote ever, that had run against E.J. Thomas, with the exception of one candidate who raised a quarter of a million dollars — and she was from Worthington, and I believe she was either on the school board or a city councilwoman 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 they said, "This is great," and I wanted to run again in 2000 — he's term-limited. They said, "Okay." 2000 comes, and 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 University Area Commission at the time — 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 Hatch in the primary. I tried to get them not to endorse anybody, but, you know, that's the way it goes in politics, they're always going to endorse the person in the primary. And Mark's name was on a sample ballot, so that was the end of it, 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 should do this, 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 me when to run, what to run for, how to think," and so forth. So about 2002 or so, I got out of the party politics. You know, and — somebody said, else — it's been 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 met at an event, and she said, "You know, Joe, I like it," she goes, "but you know, you went to the dark side," just jokingly. And I smiled, and I said, "You know, Eileen, I like it there." And we laughed, and we're all still friends. I respect everybody 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 speaking my mind and being outspoken about the issues, and not following the party. You know, I'm not part of the party machine anymore, 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 do my homework, I do my research, I understand 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." But I was shocked, to be honest with you, I thought, "Oh, my gosh, they endorsed me, this is great." And then I ran as a write-in a few times, just to challenge candidates, you know, at candidate events and such. And I was on the ballot again in 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, 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 34:15Trying to keep it high-level, given our timing — why are you running for mayor? And 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 34:35Yeah. You know, everything I've talked about is pretty much prepared me for this. And I think it's been kind of a gradual evolution into what I've been doing, having run for state rep, council, and now mayor. And one of the things that probably drives me is that I know so much about how it works. And that's what drives me — who and why things get done. And I don't see things getting done that really pertain to the working class and low-to-moderate-income people. I see just the rich, the powerful, the special interests, the developers, corporations, institutions here in Columbus, that are the primary ones that are benefiting from city tax dollars and such. 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 that's what drives me. I know why and who, and I continue to fight it. 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. They call me, or somebody called them and said, "You should talk to Joe Motil, you should see if he can help you, because he understands this, and he can get you through the process and do what he can to help." And I always have. Whether it's the west side, whether it's recently like the Greyhound bus station, or the Little Turtle roadway project — I mean, development projects across the city. I'm still involved with things that take place in the university area, they call me up, even though I'm still involved in Tuttle Park. But development's a big issue of mine. I've worked in the construction industry — retired now — but for 40 years. And I worked as union labor for 24, and as a construction safety manager for 14. So I have a very good understanding in terms of what it's like to work as a blue-collar worker. I raised my two kids working as a union laborer. 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 the last one was the Mount Carmel Grove City Hospital, which is a $355 million project. I was in charge of safety at that job — I had 535 workers on there at one time. 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 sat at tables with engineers, architects, owners, CEOs, presidents, in meetings, nearly on a weekly basis, on construction sites. Our team out at Mount Carmel Grove City was probably 30 people. And I was in charge of safety at the Riverside Methodist Hospital, the convention center remodeling and renovation project for nine months, a large project for Patel out in West Jefferson, a large dorm project at Ohio University, I worked over at the Ohio Union for Ohio State University. So I understand construction, I understand development, things of that nature. And I understand, you know, as an artist, and a musician, and an athlete, that's really, I think, contributed to forming my views and my life, socially and economically, having been able to interact with different people from different social and economic backgrounds. And that's helped me tremendously to understand what needs people need.

Tim Fulton 38:29Do you feel like, having operated outside of the system for so long, you'd have difficulty not governing outside of the system, having not been in city government?

Joe Motil 38:39Oh, 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, seriously — the Department of Development, whether it's code enforcement, the Rec and Parks, numerous departments I've been involved with. So I understand how city government works.

Tim Fulton 39:03There you go. 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: is there more that you'd like folks to know — the listeners of this podcast, and Columbus Underground, specifically?

Joe Motil 39:28Sure. And that website is joemotil.com, pretty simple. And, you know, I read Columbus Underground — I get it on my email server and such. And 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 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 issue has always been about where and how much. I mean, I am not opposed — I am opposed to, like, 13-story buildings at Lane and 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 on secondary streets and things like that, ADUs and what have you. So, again, I think there are some issues on my website that can address that, and people can also go there and make 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 in protected bike lanes, and I understand it, I get it. And I want to 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 concern in the downtown area, and what to do with them. And I agree that we should be building on them. But the problem with building more and more downtown on these empty parking lots is 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 transit? And I'd also 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, climate change — 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 more and more trees, but I don't see it happening. We can do a lot better job in terms of working as mayor of the city to make sure that 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. Those are just a few of the things. And, as some of you know, I'm very active with 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 what needs to be done to help our homeless. And I have a Housing First initiative on my website that I hope people will go to and read more about, 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 ARP 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 buying affordable housing units. And my plan is on there as well. There's a lot more that we can be doing. You know, the Columbus 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 and Central Ohio — are you kidding me? They should have their own trust fund. 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 Scioto Peninsula. I mean, I hear the word NIMBY being tossed around all the time, people saying, "You know, Joe Motil's a NIMBY, this person is a NIMBY." It looks to me like some of the corporations are NIMBYs, and some of these big developers are NIMBYs. Why aren't they building a lot of affordable housing units in places like the Scioto Peninsula? And, 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 counterproductive — 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 could go on and on about this, but please just take a look at my website, everybody. It's very extensive. It doesn't cover 100% of my platform, but it probably covers about 80% of it. So if you have comments or questions, you can email them to me, and I'll read them, and I'll get back to you.

Tim Fulton 45:11Well, I 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 45:24What is Columbus doing well? Well, they're getting jobs. I mean, we are, you know, people are coming to the city, and we're expanding 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 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, 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, they're not going to have housing. So we need to create more truly affordable housing near the job centers. And I think, as mayor — again, I have said this on the record — that I want to buy property, put out an RFP to a nonprofit housing organization, and let's build it in the core area of the city. There are a lot of those lots around, and we could do that. And we need to do more of it, 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.

Tim Fulton 47:17Joe, thanks for your time.

Joe Motil 47:18Thank you, I appreciate it. It's great.

Tim Fulton 47:31Thank 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 theconfluencecast.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@theconfluencecast.com. Our theme music was composed by Benji Robinson. Our producer is Phil Cogley. I'm your host, Tim Fulton. Have a great week.