October 23, 2023 • 17 mins
Anthony Piagentini, Metro Councilman from the 19th District, discusses the situation that led to his alleged ethics violations, his appeal through the Circuit Court process, the Mayor saying he would redirect the money involved, his future on the Council, and the whole thing being a retaliatory strike from Democrats...
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(00:02):
Went a busy newsweek last week.To be sure, Anthony Pagentini, who's
on Louisville and Metro Council. Infact, he is the Metro Council's Republican
caucus leader, was accused of usinghis city position to land a grant for
forty million dollars for Louisville Healthcare CEOCouncil. The Ethics Commission came back and
(00:24):
said accused him of six ethics rulesviolations. The mayor was in here on
Friday. He said he's going toredirect, do what he can to redirect
the forty million dollar grant, andAnthony p Agentini stood up for himself in
a press conference on Friday and joinsme now live in studio, good to
see again. Good to see aswell, welcome back. Well, this
(00:46):
has been a bit of a rockyride here in the last several days,
to be sure. Yeah, it'snot the way I would have planned it
going according to the evidence. Iwas very confident about how this would go,
but didn't go that way. Butyou know, there's other legal means
for me to fight this, andI'm going to use every legal means at
my disposal to fight this. Iread the Ethics Commission report, and it
was very detailed on so many matters. So essentially, you are a consultant,
(01:11):
like a contract player for Louisal Healthcare. Correct, you know that's correct?
Yea. And they offered you acontract two hundred and forty thousand dollars
that's twenty thousand dollars a month fora year, that's correct, and then
you abstain from voting. But thevoting happened pretty close to that contract being
offered. I'm just pair, I'mboiling it down, but is that correct?
(01:32):
That's correct? So I had supportedthat, and one of the things
they omit from their final report,there's a series of facts they omit,
one of them being I supported thatwell before anybody approached me about anything.
And the issue with even the conceptof trading your vote or having your vote
(01:53):
influenced would indicate that you didn't havea position on something, and then somebody
approaches you and then you position.There are documents, meetings, emails,
all kinds of evidence that I supportedit much earlier than that. We had
a vote in the Budget Committee.After that they reached out to me and
(02:13):
said, hey, we have thisposition. It was just approved we'd like
to talk to you about it,DA Dad, and I made super clear
what that would mean, right,I can't vote for this anymore, I
can't advocate for it, I can'tdo anything. And from that point forward,
the evidence is very clear. Ispoke to nobody. I didn't advocate
for it. I didn't talk toany of the council members at the next
(02:34):
public meeting, which is required inlaw. You have to walk into the
next public meeting and abstain from thevote, and that's precisely what I did.
So twenty five people voted for thisgrant, none of them named Anthony
Pagentini. That is the legal recourseto correct for any for any conflicts that
you may have. And yet they'restill saying that I violated it. So
(02:57):
even if you abstain from a vote, which is the way that you correct
for any conflicts, they're saying youcan still violate all these things. And
again, if you read the opinion, I would say two things about it.
Number One, there are sections wherethey make these leaps that have no
foundation in fact, inferences related towhat was said at certain meetings, stuff
(03:21):
that's not on the record. Theother thing, major flaw that they have
that I'll be appealing. Is theyjust straight omit whole sections of evidence that
refute what they put there. Theydon't even say like, well, you
know, so there's some testimony thatsays X, but we don't find it
credible. Credible because of why theydon't even bother saying it. They just
omit that it exists. And there'sother procedural things that problems that I outlined
(03:46):
in my way to whom do youappeal the circuit court? So? Yeah,
the law allows an appeal process throughthe circuit court and then from there
you can appeal it even further.Actually, but the next action if I'm
going to use that method would beto appeal to circuit corps. Is that
one judge, so that one judgeweighs it pretty heavily in on it,
that's correct. But there's an appealprocess beyond that as well, if I
(04:09):
want to if whatever that judge determinescan also be appealed, but you go
to the appellate level. Yeah,correct, and that's multiple judges. That's
correct. We'll go through all that, Okay, by Mayor Greenberg redirecting this
money before you've had the due process, which I said to him when he
was here the other day. Isn'the already finding you guilty just by redirecting
(04:32):
the one Himan? Does that feelthat way to you, that he's that
he's already made up his mind asto whether or not the Ethics Commission is
correct? Yeah, I mean whatthis is revealed is that, unfortunately,
this process leans far too political andless fact based. Right. For example,
right now, I'll give you anexample of why I know that to
be true. The chair person ofthe Committee of the Ethics Commission the week
(04:58):
after my hearing actual hearing date waslate August. Right right after that,
the Ethics the chair person of theEthics Commission wrote an op ed in The
Courier Journal blasting Jefferson County Republican legislators. Now she meant state legislators, to
be clear, but they had writtenan article about the whole busting problem with
(05:18):
JCPS. She wrote an op ednot just saying that their policy recommendations were
bad, but she made a straightad hominem attack, saying that they hated
poor people and were bigots. Right, so, if any judge or any
juror, which is basically what shewas acting ast through this process, in
(05:40):
the middle of deliberations, which shewas in the middle of deliberations at that
time, made those types of claims, those people would be excused immediately as
a juror of course, of course, and as a judge, if any
judge was doing that, because sheacts in that capacity as a judge slash
juror. Okay, this is oneof the members of the Ethics can it's
(06:00):
the chairwoman chairwoman, that's correct,the person that was leading the whole thing.
So so this is more of apolitical process than a straight legal one.
And so because of that, themayor can do that if he wants
to write. But if this wereand if this were and it's not,
this is not a criminal issue,to be super clear. People have thrown
out terms like bribery and all thatthat's blowney, right, and the Ethics
(06:23):
Commission, to their credit, actuallydetail out how different bribery is versus this,
and they're not. They're not evenclosely related. Right. But if
I were, if this were anyother normal process, they would wait for
all my due process rights to beexhausted. They don't care about that.
He's under political pressure. Frankly,as Marcus Winkler testified during my trial before
(06:46):
the Ethics commit the ethics filing,the ethics complaint was filed, testified that
people were calling him saying, you'renot a real Democrat if you don't file
this complaint against Piagentini, regardless ofwhether or not he believed I did anything
wrong. So this is a verypolitical process that's moving through. But the
good news is there are legal avenuesthat now I can avail mysel I can't.
(07:12):
Up till now, there's nothing Icould do, and I respected the
process enough to not have any ofthese media interactions or talk publicly. But
now that their deliberations are over,the gloves are off, I could speak
about it, and I'm going toget the truth out there. Who's the
person who's pushing this? Is itthe ethics chairwoman or someone above her?
In a democratic that's impossible to say, like, oh yeah. Counsel Winkler
(07:35):
couldn't specify who said this to him, but there were obvious he said,
there were people plural who were puttingpressure on him to move things forward.
This wasn't filed by counselman Winkler,to be clear. It was filed by
somebody else, a member of thepublic. But you know it's impossible for
me to opine on like who's behindthis, But there's already evidence that there's
(07:58):
been pressure by other organisations and groupsunspecified for some reason nobody can remember their
names. But who wanted to seean action taken against me? Well,
we see the numbers, We knowhow many Democrats and Republicans there are on
Metro Council. You're in a minoritysituation. They can vote to remove you,
aren't you up against the wall?First of all, it takes a
(08:20):
two thirds majority to do that,so it takes it. It's pretty high
bar. That's number one. Numbertwo again, I think against I would
say they we have to exhaust myappeal rights. First, we have to
question this process and make sure itwas done legally. Let's assume for a
second I lose in the appeal andit goes to Council, for which there's
(08:43):
a whole nother hearing that happens.What we just went through, we basically
have to do it again, thistime in front of council members as the
jurors. And I think what they'realso going to say is that this commission
just completely changed the bar on whatwe have considered and ethics violation. Right,
They emphasized that they had they reallydon't have direct evidence that I did
(09:07):
this. It's more what a personcould infer from the evidence. So now
it becomes a what's your opinion onhow you could interpret this based off of
largely circumstantial evidence. So that iswhere I think. If the like,
for example, Andrew Owen, right, he is a commercial real estate investor
(09:31):
broker. He votes on stuff relatedto zoning constantly with commercial real estate attorneys
and brokers and dealers who are involvedin those that he does business with in
other deals. He doesn't withhold hisvote. He does vote. That's right,
because unless he has a direct linehistorically in the way the law is
(09:52):
written. If there's a direct linefrom him to that, then he should
have stayed. But if there's nota direct lawn, then he can vote
on it. Right. But theway that this is being the way that
this is being adjudicated is kind oflike if I ever spoke to somebody.
I mean, this is what ifyou read the findings of Fact and Conclusions
(10:13):
of Law that the Ethics Commission putout, they're almost saying the fact that
I spoke to anybody at any timeright, even if we weren't discussing anything
specific that I would have to abstainin the future. I mean, it's
so loose, it's so grandiose.Meanwhile, there's a council member right now
(10:33):
who voted on the Tark budget right. Two months later was offered a job
by Tark paid for by the samebudget he voted on two months prior,
and the Ethics Commission thought that wasn'ta problem, and he took the job,
getting paid by the same budget thathe approved. Right. Was that
a Democrat? Yes, you're aRepublican. You're also a burr under the
saddle of the Democrats because you goon Twitter, you squawk at them oftentimes.
(10:58):
Do you think this is some sortof retaliatory strike, Well, and
I think that it is. Imean, there's no question in my mind
it is right, and I thinkthere's plenty of evidence to show that.
In addition to just being me beingoutspoken, I've been effective, frankly at
partnering with many Democrats locally. SoI don't want to paint this broad brush
with all Democrats because that's not true. My wife's a Democrat, a lot
of my supporters are Democrats. I'veworked with Democrats on Council and I'm going
(11:22):
to continue to do that. Butthere are a handful that see this as
strictly a power us versus them problem. And then in this last election cycle,
our party was successful in flipping twoseats from Democrats to Republican and I
think that scares the junk out ofthem. And I think there's a handful,
just a handful of people in verypowerful positions in this city that would
(11:43):
do just about anything to get meoff council. At this point, you
see the optics though. I mean, it's forty million dollars you're communicating with
these folks right at the same timethe contract's being done. Whether or not
you abstain from the vote, itstill looks like, wow, that you
were greasingless skids for them to getthe money. That's the whole point of
(12:03):
the ethics investigation. And this iswhy I never accused the filing the purse
that filed of being politically motivated,and I never said I wouldn't participate fully.
I participated one hundred percent in thisprocess because I didn't. I was
fine with dispelling the optics problem bydemonstrating through evidence which is what we did.
(12:26):
Right. I released hundreds, ifnot thousands of emails, phone calls,
text me whatever. I mean,everything was open to the commission.
They have everything, and I've saidon last Friday that they need to release
all that evidence publicly and they needto do it immediately, which is required
by law. By the way,But although with that said, they violated
(12:48):
my Open Records Act rights four times. I made four Open Records Act of
the Ethics Commission in Metro government,and they violated the law every single time
I did it. The Attorney Generalhad to force them to comply with the
law on each and every occasion.But they need to put the evidence out
there. I was fine with goingthrough a process that put the evidence in
the public sphere of what actually happened, because I don't want there to be
(13:13):
miscommunication or these optics out there.And I also said during the hearing,
I said, if I had atime machine, could go back and communicate
this differently. If there's anything Iregret is maybe the way I communicated it.
Fine, right, I should havecommunicated it differently. Even David James,
when he was interviewed, said thathad this been communicated differently, we
wouldn't even be sitting here, iswhat he said, and I agree.
(13:37):
So if that's a lesson learned,fine, I'll discuss that. But that's
a far cry from saying that Itraded my vote for any other external influence
when the truth isn't even close tothat. Well, there are a lot
of other organizations that were hoping toget a chunk of that money as well,
and obviously you know the out thatyou are connected to. Louisville Healthcare
(13:58):
CEO Council got it. Now it'sgoing to be redirected, but it's not
going to those other organizations. It'sthe mayor said, city parks and other
projects like that, I believe.Yeah, you know what's funny. First
of all, just to put someof the facts that came out during the
hearing on the table, this wasn'tmy idea at all. This idea to
award this to the Healthcare CEO Councilcame from Mayor Fisher's office, specifically a
(14:22):
woman named Grace Simmerel. She's hada conversation with Marcus Winkler told him that
this was a great idea. Marcusbelieved her, and then he called me
and told me about it. Ididn't know it existed until that happened.
So this was an idea generated fromthe Fisher administration, went through Marcus,
and then Marcus sold me on it, right. So that's just first of
all the facts. The second partis it was well known how upset people
(14:46):
were that you know, there werea lot of people angling for this money,
and there was a lot of pressurebeing put on by other organizations.
Even the Courier Journal, one oftheir reporters contacted me at one point early
in this process and mentioned a divisionof GLI that was upset about them not
getting the money. Kentuckyana Works wasupset they didn't get the money. So
(15:07):
there were multiple organizations that were upsetand trying to take action after the fact
to see how they could still getaccess to the money even after it was
allocated and take a chunk out ofyou too because of this connection. That's
just a fringe benefit to people thatloved me so much last time, And
where was the money, how wasit going to be used? Yeah,
(15:28):
So the whole design of it,we have a massive workforce problem in healthcare.
We do not have enough people workingin healthcare to sustain the kind of
healthcare that all senior citizens will needover the next ten twenty thirty years.
So the whole purpose of it wasto help people that came from low income
and socioeconomic and racial demographics who don'ttraditionally get into the healthcare space. So
(15:54):
we were partnering with the Urban Leagueand with the Metro United Way and other
organizations and to get people, particularlyin lower income areas that don't look at
healthcare as a career path, toget them into healthcare as a career path
which will pay them more than manyother career paths, give them lifelong earning
benefits, and simultaneously help solve thishealthcare career problem. Right. So that
(16:18):
was that was what this was goingto do. Is your contract still intact?
Are you still getting paid twenty thousanda month? It is okay,
So regardless of whether the money wasdelivered, you are still a consultant for
Yeah. That was that was veryvery clear, and this came out during
the hearing that you know, Iwhen I was when I was approached about
the job, I said, Idon't want to I don't want any you
know, fiscal responsibility really to thegrant and I want to be working on
(16:42):
things that aren't related to it,and that's exactly what I've been doing.
So yeah, No, my mycontract is very much is your guest that
you will remain on the Metro Council. No, it's your hope. But
is it your guest that you havethe votes? I mean, I I
don't want to put words in mycolleagues. Oh yeah, but like I
said, I'm going to exercise alllegal means to clear the air here and
(17:06):
to fight this because I do thinknot only was the process broken, but
the facts don't bear out what they'vecharged me with. And I'm going to
fight this by every legal means andevery and then if it goes to council,
every political means necessary. Anthony Pagentinifrom Louisville Metro Council, also Metro
Council's Republican Caucus leader, thank youso much. Thank you appreciate you coming
(17:26):
in here and telling your story.Always an honor. All right, back
in a few on news Radio eightforty whas
Went a busy newsweek last week.To be sure, Anthony Pagentini, who's
on Louisville and Metro Council. Infact, he is the Metro Council's Republican
caucus leader, was accused of usinghis city position to land a grant for
forty million dollars for Louisville Healthcare CEOCouncil. The Ethics Commission came back and
(00:24):
said accused him of six ethics rulesviolations. The mayor was in here on
Friday. He said he's going toredirect, do what he can to redirect
the forty million dollar grant, andAnthony p Agentini stood up for himself in
a press conference on Friday and joinsme now live in studio, good to
see again. Good to see aswell, welcome back. Well, this
(00:46):
has been a bit of a rockyride here in the last several days,
to be sure. Yeah, it'snot the way I would have planned it
going according to the evidence. Iwas very confident about how this would go,
but didn't go that way. Butyou know, there's other legal means
for me to fight this, andI'm going to use every legal means at
my disposal to fight this. Iread the Ethics Commission report, and it
was very detailed on so many matters. So essentially, you are a consultant,
(01:11):
like a contract player for Louisal Healthcare. Correct, you know that's correct?
Yea. And they offered you acontract two hundred and forty thousand dollars
that's twenty thousand dollars a month fora year, that's correct, and then
you abstain from voting. But thevoting happened pretty close to that contract being
offered. I'm just pair, I'mboiling it down, but is that correct?
(01:32):
That's correct? So I had supportedthat, and one of the things
they omit from their final report,there's a series of facts they omit,
one of them being I supported thatwell before anybody approached me about anything.
And the issue with even the conceptof trading your vote or having your vote
(01:53):
influenced would indicate that you didn't havea position on something, and then somebody
approaches you and then you position.There are documents, meetings, emails,
all kinds of evidence that I supportedit much earlier than that. We had
a vote in the Budget Committee.After that they reached out to me and
(02:13):
said, hey, we have thisposition. It was just approved we'd like
to talk to you about it,DA Dad, and I made super clear
what that would mean, right,I can't vote for this anymore, I
can't advocate for it, I can'tdo anything. And from that point forward,
the evidence is very clear. Ispoke to nobody. I didn't advocate
for it. I didn't talk toany of the council members at the next
(02:34):
public meeting, which is required inlaw. You have to walk into the
next public meeting and abstain from thevote, and that's precisely what I did.
So twenty five people voted for thisgrant, none of them named Anthony
Pagentini. That is the legal recourseto correct for any for any conflicts that
you may have. And yet they'restill saying that I violated it. So
(02:57):
even if you abstain from a vote, which is the way that you correct
for any conflicts, they're saying youcan still violate all these things. And
again, if you read the opinion, I would say two things about it.
Number One, there are sections wherethey make these leaps that have no
foundation in fact, inferences related towhat was said at certain meetings, stuff
(03:21):
that's not on the record. Theother thing, major flaw that they have
that I'll be appealing. Is theyjust straight omit whole sections of evidence that
refute what they put there. Theydon't even say like, well, you
know, so there's some testimony thatsays X, but we don't find it
credible. Credible because of why theydon't even bother saying it. They just
omit that it exists. And there'sother procedural things that problems that I outlined
(03:46):
in my way to whom do youappeal the circuit court? So? Yeah,
the law allows an appeal process throughthe circuit court and then from there
you can appeal it even further.Actually, but the next action if I'm
going to use that method would beto appeal to circuit corps. Is that
one judge, so that one judgeweighs it pretty heavily in on it,
that's correct. But there's an appealprocess beyond that as well, if I
(04:09):
want to if whatever that judge determinescan also be appealed, but you go
to the appellate level. Yeah,correct, and that's multiple judges. That's
correct. We'll go through all that, Okay, by Mayor Greenberg redirecting this
money before you've had the due process, which I said to him when he
was here the other day. Isn'the already finding you guilty just by redirecting
(04:32):
the one Himan? Does that feelthat way to you, that he's that
he's already made up his mind asto whether or not the Ethics Commission is
correct? Yeah, I mean whatthis is revealed is that, unfortunately,
this process leans far too political andless fact based. Right. For example,
right now, I'll give you anexample of why I know that to
be true. The chair person ofthe Committee of the Ethics Commission the week
(04:58):
after my hearing actual hearing date waslate August. Right right after that,
the Ethics the chair person of theEthics Commission wrote an op ed in The
Courier Journal blasting Jefferson County Republican legislators. Now she meant state legislators, to
be clear, but they had writtenan article about the whole busting problem with
(05:18):
JCPS. She wrote an op ednot just saying that their policy recommendations were
bad, but she made a straightad hominem attack, saying that they hated
poor people and were bigots. Right, so, if any judge or any
juror, which is basically what shewas acting ast through this process, in
(05:40):
the middle of deliberations, which shewas in the middle of deliberations at that
time, made those types of claims, those people would be excused immediately as
a juror of course, of course, and as a judge, if any
judge was doing that, because sheacts in that capacity as a judge slash
juror. Okay, this is oneof the members of the Ethics can it's
(06:00):
the chairwoman chairwoman, that's correct,the person that was leading the whole thing.
So so this is more of apolitical process than a straight legal one.
And so because of that, themayor can do that if he wants
to write. But if this wereand if this were and it's not,
this is not a criminal issue,to be super clear. People have thrown
out terms like bribery and all thatthat's blowney, right, and the Ethics
(06:23):
Commission, to their credit, actuallydetail out how different bribery is versus this,
and they're not. They're not evenclosely related. Right. But if
I were, if this were anyother normal process, they would wait for
all my due process rights to beexhausted. They don't care about that.
He's under political pressure. Frankly,as Marcus Winkler testified during my trial before
(06:46):
the Ethics commit the ethics filing,the ethics complaint was filed, testified that
people were calling him saying, you'renot a real Democrat if you don't file
this complaint against Piagentini, regardless ofwhether or not he believed I did anything
wrong. So this is a verypolitical process that's moving through. But the
good news is there are legal avenuesthat now I can avail mysel I can't.
(07:12):
Up till now, there's nothing Icould do, and I respected the
process enough to not have any ofthese media interactions or talk publicly. But
now that their deliberations are over,the gloves are off, I could speak
about it, and I'm going toget the truth out there. Who's the
person who's pushing this? Is itthe ethics chairwoman or someone above her?
In a democratic that's impossible to say, like, oh yeah. Counsel Winkler
(07:35):
couldn't specify who said this to him, but there were obvious he said,
there were people plural who were puttingpressure on him to move things forward.
This wasn't filed by counselman Winkler,to be clear. It was filed by
somebody else, a member of thepublic. But you know it's impossible for
me to opine on like who's behindthis, But there's already evidence that there's
(07:58):
been pressure by other organisations and groupsunspecified for some reason nobody can remember their
names. But who wanted to seean action taken against me? Well,
we see the numbers, We knowhow many Democrats and Republicans there are on
Metro Council. You're in a minoritysituation. They can vote to remove you,
aren't you up against the wall?First of all, it takes a
(08:20):
two thirds majority to do that,so it takes it. It's pretty high
bar. That's number one. Numbertwo again, I think against I would
say they we have to exhaust myappeal rights. First, we have to
question this process and make sure itwas done legally. Let's assume for a
second I lose in the appeal andit goes to Council, for which there's
(08:43):
a whole nother hearing that happens.What we just went through, we basically
have to do it again, thistime in front of council members as the
jurors. And I think what they'realso going to say is that this commission
just completely changed the bar on whatwe have considered and ethics violation. Right,
They emphasized that they had they reallydon't have direct evidence that I did
(09:07):
this. It's more what a personcould infer from the evidence. So now
it becomes a what's your opinion onhow you could interpret this based off of
largely circumstantial evidence. So that iswhere I think. If the like,
for example, Andrew Owen, right, he is a commercial real estate investor
(09:31):
broker. He votes on stuff relatedto zoning constantly with commercial real estate attorneys
and brokers and dealers who are involvedin those that he does business with in
other deals. He doesn't withhold hisvote. He does vote. That's right,
because unless he has a direct linehistorically in the way the law is
(09:52):
written. If there's a direct linefrom him to that, then he should
have stayed. But if there's nota direct lawn, then he can vote
on it. Right. But theway that this is being the way that
this is being adjudicated is kind oflike if I ever spoke to somebody.
I mean, this is what ifyou read the findings of Fact and Conclusions
(10:13):
of Law that the Ethics Commission putout, they're almost saying the fact that
I spoke to anybody at any timeright, even if we weren't discussing anything
specific that I would have to abstainin the future. I mean, it's
so loose, it's so grandiose.Meanwhile, there's a council member right now
(10:33):
who voted on the Tark budget right. Two months later was offered a job
by Tark paid for by the samebudget he voted on two months prior,
and the Ethics Commission thought that wasn'ta problem, and he took the job,
getting paid by the same budget thathe approved. Right. Was that
a Democrat? Yes, you're aRepublican. You're also a burr under the
saddle of the Democrats because you goon Twitter, you squawk at them oftentimes.
(10:58):
Do you think this is some sortof retaliatory strike, Well, and
I think that it is. Imean, there's no question in my mind
it is right, and I thinkthere's plenty of evidence to show that.
In addition to just being me beingoutspoken, I've been effective, frankly at
partnering with many Democrats locally. SoI don't want to paint this broad brush
with all Democrats because that's not true. My wife's a Democrat, a lot
of my supporters are Democrats. I'veworked with Democrats on Council and I'm going
(11:22):
to continue to do that. Butthere are a handful that see this as
strictly a power us versus them problem. And then in this last election cycle,
our party was successful in flipping twoseats from Democrats to Republican and I
think that scares the junk out ofthem. And I think there's a handful,
just a handful of people in verypowerful positions in this city that would
(11:43):
do just about anything to get meoff council. At this point, you
see the optics though. I mean, it's forty million dollars you're communicating with
these folks right at the same timethe contract's being done. Whether or not
you abstain from the vote, itstill looks like, wow, that you
were greasingless skids for them to getthe money. That's the whole point of
(12:03):
the ethics investigation. And this iswhy I never accused the filing the purse
that filed of being politically motivated,and I never said I wouldn't participate fully.
I participated one hundred percent in thisprocess because I didn't. I was
fine with dispelling the optics problem bydemonstrating through evidence which is what we did.
(12:26):
Right. I released hundreds, ifnot thousands of emails, phone calls,
text me whatever. I mean,everything was open to the commission.
They have everything, and I've saidon last Friday that they need to release
all that evidence publicly and they needto do it immediately, which is required
by law. By the way,But although with that said, they violated
(12:48):
my Open Records Act rights four times. I made four Open Records Act of
the Ethics Commission in Metro government,and they violated the law every single time
I did it. The Attorney Generalhad to force them to comply with the
law on each and every occasion.But they need to put the evidence out
there. I was fine with goingthrough a process that put the evidence in
the public sphere of what actually happened, because I don't want there to be
(13:13):
miscommunication or these optics out there.And I also said during the hearing,
I said, if I had atime machine, could go back and communicate
this differently. If there's anything Iregret is maybe the way I communicated it.
Fine, right, I should havecommunicated it differently. Even David James,
when he was interviewed, said thathad this been communicated differently, we
wouldn't even be sitting here, iswhat he said, and I agree.
(13:37):
So if that's a lesson learned,fine, I'll discuss that. But that's
a far cry from saying that Itraded my vote for any other external influence
when the truth isn't even close tothat. Well, there are a lot
of other organizations that were hoping toget a chunk of that money as well,
and obviously you know the out thatyou are connected to. Louisville Healthcare
(13:58):
CEO Council got it. Now it'sgoing to be redirected, but it's not
going to those other organizations. It'sthe mayor said, city parks and other
projects like that, I believe.Yeah, you know what's funny. First
of all, just to put someof the facts that came out during the
hearing on the table, this wasn'tmy idea at all. This idea to
award this to the Healthcare CEO Councilcame from Mayor Fisher's office, specifically a
(14:22):
woman named Grace Simmerel. She's hada conversation with Marcus Winkler told him that
this was a great idea. Marcusbelieved her, and then he called me
and told me about it. Ididn't know it existed until that happened.
So this was an idea generated fromthe Fisher administration, went through Marcus,
and then Marcus sold me on it, right. So that's just first of
all the facts. The second partis it was well known how upset people
(14:46):
were that you know, there werea lot of people angling for this money,
and there was a lot of pressurebeing put on by other organizations.
Even the Courier Journal, one oftheir reporters contacted me at one point early
in this process and mentioned a divisionof GLI that was upset about them not
getting the money. Kentuckyana Works wasupset they didn't get the money. So
(15:07):
there were multiple organizations that were upsetand trying to take action after the fact
to see how they could still getaccess to the money even after it was
allocated and take a chunk out ofyou too because of this connection. That's
just a fringe benefit to people thatloved me so much last time, And
where was the money, how wasit going to be used? Yeah,
(15:28):
So the whole design of it,we have a massive workforce problem in healthcare.
We do not have enough people workingin healthcare to sustain the kind of
healthcare that all senior citizens will needover the next ten twenty thirty years.
So the whole purpose of it wasto help people that came from low income
and socioeconomic and racial demographics who don'ttraditionally get into the healthcare space. So
(15:54):
we were partnering with the Urban Leagueand with the Metro United Way and other
organizations and to get people, particularlyin lower income areas that don't look at
healthcare as a career path, toget them into healthcare as a career path
which will pay them more than manyother career paths, give them lifelong earning
benefits, and simultaneously help solve thishealthcare career problem. Right. So that
(16:18):
was that was what this was goingto do. Is your contract still intact?
Are you still getting paid twenty thousanda month? It is okay,
So regardless of whether the money wasdelivered, you are still a consultant for
Yeah. That was that was veryvery clear, and this came out during
the hearing that you know, Iwhen I was when I was approached about
the job, I said, Idon't want to I don't want any you
know, fiscal responsibility really to thegrant and I want to be working on
(16:42):
things that aren't related to it,and that's exactly what I've been doing.
So yeah, No, my mycontract is very much is your guest that
you will remain on the Metro Council. No, it's your hope. But
is it your guest that you havethe votes? I mean, I I
don't want to put words in mycolleagues. Oh yeah, but like I
said, I'm going to exercise alllegal means to clear the air here and
(17:06):
to fight this because I do thinknot only was the process broken, but
the facts don't bear out what they'vecharged me with. And I'm going to
fight this by every legal means andevery and then if it goes to council,
every political means necessary. Anthony Pagentinifrom Louisville Metro Council, also Metro
Council's Republican Caucus leader, thank youso much. Thank you appreciate you coming
(17:26):
in here and telling your story.Always an honor. All right, back
in a few on news Radio eightforty whas
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