Thursday, June 08, 2006
Posted by The Dean of Cincinnati
 The following transcript is copied from the 2005 International Association of Character Cities convention in Oklahoma City. In this excerpt from Mike Daly’s speech (Daly is a local businessman connected with Phil Heimlich and the Gothardites), he seems to indicate that something similar to a quid pro quo happened when he gave Phil Heimlich a campaign contribution. This section of the speech discusses how the local Character Council was implemented.
Mike Daly:
Some of the people you are hearing this week are some of the people that helped us get it started in Cincinnati. And Cincinnati is one of the cities that took it as far as any city in the world. We were very active.
And there were four areas that we went after: government—and we have one of our city officials with us this week (Phil Heimlich is going to speak to you tomorrow) and Phil is the Commissioner for Hamilton County, Ohio which contains Cincinnati; so Phil governs an area with about a million people in it, and there’s three Commissioners that govern Hamilton County, Ohio. At the time we started the Character Council, Phil was a City Councilman for the City of Cincinnati—and Phil is the most influential Republican (in this case) official in the City of Cincinnati. And you’re going to hear from him tomorrow.
And after I came here, to this center, three times in a few months, I went back to Cincinnati, and I decided I wanted my business owners in Cincinnati that were friends of mine to hear the message that you’re hearing this week. And I have a lot of business owners as clients because I’m a life insurance guy that’s pretty successful at it. And my clients own businesses. So I, on my own check, went back to Cincinnati and I rented a fancy room in a big hotel—a very large room called “The Hall of Mirrors” (it has mirrors in that room that have gold backing of some kind, and the mirrors are worth millions of dollars). Remember that room, Larry? I don’t know if you were at that… Is Ray Nash back here? Ray Nash is here! Have you spoken yet today, Ray, or is it tomorrow?
Tomorrow? So Sheriff Nash helped us with our effort too, so I’ll pull all that together for you and tell you how it worked.
Larry, Phil, Sheriff Nash—they all helped us in Cincinnati. So this fabulous hall (and I think they said the mirrors were worth seven million dollars), we rented this hall—I did just as I wanted business owners to hear about what you’re hearing, and I invited Tom Hill (have they heard from Mr. Hill yet today?). And Mr. Hill is the business man that’s behind all of this, that got it in his heart and funded this facility, etc.—he won’t share that himself but Tom Hill is responsible for everything. And Tom is responsible, I consider myself one of his plants. I’ve watched him, respected him, took it back to my city.
We sent out a large number, I’m thinking I remember ten thousand invitations, to come and hear these folks in our City, and I paid the bill. I think I charged a hundred dollars—I’m forgetting kind of because it’s seven years ago. I think I charged a hundred dollars if you could afford it; if you can’t afford it just come. And there was over one hundred business owners came that day, and heard the message from Mr. Hill, and he brought Larry McAtee who you might hear from this week (is Larry speaking?). We just came in so I haven’t heard of your whole calendar.
And they came to Cincinnati and they won the hearts of the city, when we brought them to Cincinnati. And it wasn’t very expensive. The hundred dollar fee covered a great part of it and then I covered a small part of it at the end.
After that, there was so much enthusiasm in Cincinnati to do something that I called a few friends together—and I made a donation to Phil’s campaign—Phil Heimlich, the politician you’ll meet tomorrow. First time we met he called me up, and I gave him a donation and we had lunch together. And he said, “Is there anything on your heart that I should do for you?” And he was expecting me to ask for something from the government for business. Instead, I shoved all these materials at Phil and said, “Yeah, get this into our city.”
Is that correct, Phil? Is that pretty much a recount of what happened? Phil’s back there in the last row. Stand up for a second, Phil, so I can—there’s Phil Heimlich, as I told you the influential politician, and Ray, stand up, too. Ray and I—we taught the whole police force.
So I’m just trying to show you how one city worked. This is how one city got together.
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