Editor’s note: This article contains a quote that included a racial slur. For clarity and sensitivity, we have replaced the word with “[N-word]” while preserving the speaker’s intent.
Editor’s note: After this story was published, Rosemary Oglesby-Henry was charged with aggravating menacing for pointing a firearm at Kevin Farmer.
A new candidate has entered the race for Cincinnati City Council, bringing a set of fresh ideas. If elected, Republican candidate Kevin Farmer plans to wear a body cam for transparency, schedule more police to work during the 11 p.m. to 7 p.m. “third-shift” for crime prevention and simply be a good “employee” to the people, as he calls it.
Convinced to run by his friend Rosemary Oglesby-Henry, who is running for the U.S. House of Representatives in Ohio’s 1st District, Farmer is focused on improving the city council’s work ethic, productivity and transparency. He also wants to improve infrastructure in the overlooked communities of Cincinnati, specifically in his home neighborhood of Avondale.
As a child, Farmer was in foster care at KELLY Youth Services Group Home and later built his own public relations and marketing firm, Made You Look Promotions, despite the odds against him. Before deciding to campaign for himself, Farmer collected candidacy signatures for Republican candidates for Cincinnati mayor, Cory Bowman — Vice President J.D. Vance’s half-brother — and Brian Frank. Bowman and incumbent Democrat Aftab Pureval will face off this November in the Cincinnati mayoral race.
“I’m here for my hood, because I’m from it,” wrote Farmer on Facebook, “I represent my community, and I’m committed to building something better for those coming after me.”
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
CityBeat: As someone who is endorsed by Joe Kelly, a former Bengals linebacker, how do you feel about Joe Burrow’s injury?
Kevin Farmer: That’s a tragedy. But the game must go on. [Jake Browning] was able to step up. I tell people, when bad times are happening, strong men do step up out of bad times, like myself.
CB: What made you want to step up now and run for city council?
KF: I’m gonna be honest with you, my friend Rosemary [Oglesby-Henry], the CEO and founder of Rosemary’s Babies, asked me to run on my podcast. Her and a good friend, his name is Michaelangelo. I was interviewing him that evening; it was like the second Tuesday of May this year. And she jumped into comments and they both was ragging on me saying, “You can go get these signatures for all these other candidates. Why won’t you go get your signatures for yourself?” And I was reluctant, saying, you know, “I don’t do the politics; I don’t want to run for office.” You know; it’s wicked. It’s very wicked. But they were a little bit aggressive. And I said, I’ll do it if y’all support me. And they said, “We’ll support you.”
CB: What other candidates were you getting signatures for before you decided to campaign?
KF: I was getting signatures for Cory Bowman, Brian Frank, both of the two Republican candidates that ran in this election. When I found out Liz Keating was getting into the race, I helped Liz Keating get a few of her signatures also.
CB: Instead of getting signatures and trying to help these other candidates, how does it feel to be running against them now?
KF: This is very new. Being a candidate, you really find out who really hates you. You find out who really hates you. And that made me weep at times because I had certain friends I would never imagine — and just wanted their support. ‘Cause it doesn’t cost us a thing to go vote. And certain friends would just, like, tell me, “You need to be careful of who you align yourself with.”
CB: Do you think one of your main struggles is just trying to get people to vote in general, not just vote for you, but just go out and vote?
KF: When it comes down to [N-word], yeah. It’s hard to get [N-word] to vote. I’m gonna be frank with you, because [N-word] and Black people are different. There’s a category of two. So it’s the same thing when you call white folks and hillbillies.
We, as [N-word], don’t vote, but white hillbillies, what we call MAGAs out there, they do participate and are more politically conscious ’cause they got someone that they believe in. It’s like doing their worship. But [N-word] ain’t found nobody that they can ever worship.
What I’m understanding in my community is, you know, we took in too much opportunity and handouts and now we’re in a situation that is detrimental to the Black community. And that’s why we’re falling short.
CB: Do you think that you can be that person in local politics, that figure for the Black community?
KF: Yeah. I don’t know. I don’t know. I believe that’s up to the people. If the Cincinnatians elect me, even if you stay outside of the city, if you work here or live inside of the city, you technically will be my boss.
CB: So you’re very focused on serving the people directly.
KF: I just want to be a great employee to people. And I think that’s what we’re missing, because now we have mob bosses. That’s what I like to call them. Politicians are more like mob bosses. It’s always hard to really talk to [them] unless you got some money. The people were always supposed to be in front of government, always, not government over people.
CB: So you plan to have a mutual relationship with the people of Cincinnati when you represent them?
KF: If the people do elect me, I am literally in my first 100 days gonna implement myself with a body cam. I believe all politicians, you know, any elected official needs to be equipped with a body cam. You should know where I’m at at all times, unless I’m off work. I mean, I do got to sleep, of course. But that’s where I say, we also got to implement in my first 100 days a third-shift policy. Even if I have to be the prime example of showing my other eight coworkers how to be great employees too. Because right now, I’m gonna be the one that tattle-tales if I’m working harder than the other eight employees that ain’t working. That’s where the body cam comes in.
You’re paying for the office, you’re paying for the staff and then you need to see what dealings are coming out and what meetings are taking place.
Then also third shift, 11 to 7, let’s be honest. Put some oversight on the police, fire, engineering and medical. Let’s be honest — 11 to 7, don’t get it twisted. Crime is all around. But crime really peeks his head at night. I know this.
Then we can open up certain things like these rec centers. Why not? I always said that when I was young. Why can’t this rec center be 24 hours? Oh, the excuse was we don’t have the staff and personnel. Okay, “I’m third shift, now give me the keys.”
CB: What are your thoughts on the city council’s response to the increased crime rates over the summer?
There [are] politics that disallow the law enforcement to do their job. That’s putting barriers in place.
We dropped the ball in 2018, when it came down to the Public Safety Academy. So the Public Safety Academy was in 2018 when it was a ballot initiative where the Cincinnati Public Schools offered this initiative to put it on the ballot, which passed in 2018, to be able to implement police and fire training where a child or a teenager can get five additional credit points on their exam if they want to be become a police officer or a firefighter.
So we haven’t even had the initiative since 2018 because we were so much on corruption and defunding police. So we’ve been putting ourselves in these situations now that law enforcement that are getting older are retiring and they can’t get no new blood to come in. So we have to put ourselves into more of an aggressive action, which I believe that I will have to make motions out here to be able to get our police chief as an elected official. Our police chief needs to be an elected official like our sheriff or anything else, and our police chief should report to her police at the end of the day, not the city manager.
CB: Do you think that the current police chief, Teresa Theetge, has done a good job?
KF: I don’t know, because right now, the chief is subjected to the city manager and the city manager is subjected to the mayor. I believe right now, she’s doing anything to keep her job.
She wasn’t an elected official, so she can get fired. And we’ve seen this in times when it comes to police chiefs not following what our mayor wants. We have too much political influence on our police.
CB: So you have the support of all these people and your community around you, but you’re not endorsed by a specific party like some of the other council candidates. Do you think that this will put you at a disadvantage?
It will be a disadvantage, yes, it will be. The city of Cincinnati is designed that way, because politics is designed that way. It’s very hard as an Independent (candidate without party support), unless you’re rich. My thing is, I don’t talk and look like party material. I don’t talk and look like union material, even though I was in the labor union at a time. My goal is to take as much government out of our mess and let’s start promoting more team efficiency in our community.
A general election for the position of mayor and the nine city council seats will be held on Nov. 4 in Cincinnati. All current council members, excluding Victoria Parks, will be up for reelection and have received an endorsement from the Democratic Party. To find the nearest polling station, visit the Hamilton County Board of Elections’ site.