Cincinnati Vice Mayor Christopher Smitherman has been speaking out against some of his council colleagues' illegal and unethical behavior for years. 

It's time others join him, Smitherman told The Enquirer's That's So Cincinnati podcast. 

Especially since he believes federal investigators aren't done rooting out corruption at City Hall in the wake of three city council members being arrested on pay-to-play charges this year.

Smitherman recently called Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine to ask the Republican to consider overhauling state agencies that are supposed to be in charge of holding public officials accountable. 

"We've had some state organizations, one being the Ohio Ethics Commission, that failed here," Smitherman said. "I think his office needs to take a real hard look at the state agencies that are charged with looking at public bodies across the state of Ohio. The ethics commission says, 'We're not a proactive body. We sit back and wait for the complaint.' "

Smitherman continued: "What proactive steps could the Ohio Ethics Commission (take) knowing about what was happening in Cincinnati? It seems to me that the Ohio Ethics Commission somewhere through this process over the last three years would've intervened, and they didn't. What could they do better?"