- A mass shooting in Akron leaves grief and trauma in its wake for the entire city.

Cleveland City Council raises the ceiling on donor contributions despite pushback from activists and Governor DeWine signs off on bills passed during the special session He ordered.

Ideas is next.

Hello and welcome to Ideas.

I'm Andrew Meyer in for Mike McIntyre.

Thanks for joining us.

Police in Akron are still piecing together the events that led up to a mass shooting.

Last weekend.

Gunfire erupted at a street party killing one person and injuring 27 others.

Cleveland City Council made fast work this week on a measure that would double the amount individuals and businesses can donate to council candidates.

The measure received pushback from some activists.

The governor signs off on bills passed during the special session.

He ordered including a ban on campaign contributions from foreign nationals and the Highway patrol cracks down on reckless driving in construction work zones as the summer travel season begins.

Joining me this week for the round table in studio from Idea Stream Public Media reporters, Abby Marshall and Abigail Boar, state House News Bureau Chief Karen Kassler joins from Columbus.

Let's get started.

The new leadership in Akron is being put to the test by a mass shooting last weekend at a street party in the East Akron neighborhood.

One person died and police now say 27 people were injured.

Two are still in critical condition, a vigil for the victims and the community was held last night.

Abigail Police, you've been keeping up on this police have not released any descriptions of suspects.

Is that largely due to the chaotic nature of what happened on Sunday?

- Yeah, that's kind of what we think at this point.

Police believe that this was a drive-by shooting.

So not everyone at this very large party witnessed the shooting, saw the suspect or suspects or the car they were driving.

Police Chief Brian Harding said this week the police are following up on car descriptions from 9 1 1 calls that they received, including a red Dodge Charger and other cars.

But he said he doesn't want to jeopardize any information the police have at this point.

- I want to thank our community for their help as we have received a number of tips and calls, we're also following up on every lead at this time.

We do not know, do not have a vehicle or suspect information to share.

We continue to ask the community and those present for any information that could help lead to the person or persons responsible for the tragedy.

- This incident, his incident is a test for Mayor Shamus Mick.

He's just six months on the job and also especially for Chief Brian Harding, who is essentially was on the job for a week when this happened.

What have they been doing or we're saying in response?

- Yeah, this has definitely been a really tragic start to Harding's tenure as chief officially, he's been acting chief since January, but officially for the past week.

But I would say Molik and Harding have been incredibly front facing since immediately after the shooting.

They've been holding press conferences to share what the police know this past week and giving frequent updates on social media.

Molik has said the city will working on gun violence prevention programs this summer, and both Molik and Harding have been calling for anyone who has any information on the shooting to come forward.

And Malik has also been talking about the importance of mental health access and resources as the entire city works through the trauma of the shooting.

- The potential for escalated violence over the summer is a concern for mayors all across the country, not just in Akron, but what are some of the specifics about what Akron's already been doing to try and get ahead of this?

- Sure.

For right now, we know for sure that that Molik announced a plan to pilot a street team, which would be consist of people who have experience with gun violence.

They'd be going out into the community and talking to people involved in gun violence to try to help curb that.

I also have, you know, we've been fought covering how lots of organizations in the city have been working to develop programs to curb youth violence, but we haven't really like heard definitive holistic plan, I'd say, from the city on how they plan to curb gun violence this summer.

So, you know, we'll keep an eye on on any new developments on that.

I will say city council still has to pass that street team pilot that Molik announced during his state of the city speech a couple months ago.

So we're kind of still in limbo on getting that one started for the summer.

- In an update that the mayor and the chief had on Wednesday, the mayor talked about the mental health support that the city was gonna step up and provide to the city.

Do we have more details on exactly how this is going to manifest?

- Sure, yeah.

Malik said that the victims of the shooting have been receiving help from the victim assistance program of Summit County, and he's urging any resident of Akron to, or just, you know, anyone in general to call 9 8 8 if they're in crisis.

Or you can also call 2 1 1, which is the United Way resource line to get connected with mental health services or the county of Summit Alcohol drug addiction and mental health services board mental health hotline.

That number is 3 3 0 4 3 4 9 1 4 4.

So lots of options and, and mental health access that Moic has just been encouraging community members to take take up on.

- And I wanna circle back to something you just said for all of Akron.

Now, we were talking about this yesterday.

This is something that affected more than just one Akron neighborhood.

It's really impacted the entire city.

Yeah, - This is something that came up when our other Akron reporter, Anna Huntsman and I were in East Akron this week reporting.

We were talking to former city council member Tara Mosley Weems, who's still a, a huge community leader in East Akron.

She's lived there her whole life and, and she was like, there were so many people at this party.

It wasn't just people from East Akron.

They're probably someone from every single neighborhood in Akron at this party.

So this has such wide ranging impacts throughout ricocheting, throughout the entire community.

And I mean, it's not just East Akron that's experiencing spike in gun violence.

We've seen that across Akron, we've seen that across Cleveland, across Ohio.

So I think it's, it's really shaken up, honestly, like the whole community at this point because of how scary and innocent it is that you could just be celebrating a birthday and have your entire night ruined and forever altered by maybe even a random act.

We don't, we don't know at this point.

So it's definitely something that the community is gonna take a long time to like mourn and, and, and kind of try to move forward through.

- And Idea Stream will continue to keep a focus on the aftermath of the shooting and bring the latest as we get new information.

Cleveland City Council approved legislation this week that doubles the campaign finance contribution limits for individuals and businesses.

Council President Blaine Griffin says it's about keeping up with inflation, but the passage of the legislation was not without controversy.

Abby, let's lay the groundwork.

What was the old limit?

Where the new limits?

Yeah, - So the limits were raised from $1,500 for individuals like you, me, probably most of the folks listening to 3000 and for political action committees or pacs, which are those larger ideological group rep representing unions, beliefs, that sort of thing.

It went from 3000 to 6,000.

- So 1500 to 3000 for individual contributions.

Okay, inflation prices are going up, we need more money to play the political game.

But there are opponents who are the main opponents who are saying, yeah, nah, not so fast.

- So one of the main controversies surrounding this is issue was how quickly it passed through.

This was something that was introduced or made public last Thursday with intention to pass this past Monday, which is also council's final meeting before they go to their reduced summer schedule.

Those meetings tend to be longer, they push out a lot more legislation to try to, to get it through before summer.

So there tends to be less vetting, a lot more legislation going through.

So some of the opponents, a a group of residents actually over the weekend authored a letter urging council members to vote no express opposition.

And they said with how quickly this was being done, it almost seemed like they were kind of trying to sweep it under the rug.

They said it undermines public trust, but also increases power for the wealthy.

So that letter got about 200 signatures.

Many of them were, you know, community activists that we see a lot come to council, but a lot of them were just regular Cleveland people as well.

- Residents.

And it's not just people in the community.

There's someone council who are saying maybe this isn't such a great idea, who are they?

Yeah.

- So three of council 17 members actually voted no, that's Rebecca Moore, Charles Lyfe and re Jenny Spencer.

And Spencer said it was because of, like I mentioned, that fast timeline.

She felt like she didn't have time to do her due diligence and, and really have sufficient time to review.

Rebecca Moore aired toward the side of some of the folks that said this opened the gate to possibly people, you know, buying seats on council for a council That has been very largely grassroots.

You know, all of un unlike cities like Akron, which has at large council members that represent the whole city in Cleveland, we have ward council people and they represent specific areas, specific groups, so they are really on the ground with their neighbors.

So that was one of the concerns that some of these other folks had.

- Council President Griffin also has said that the measures needed because redistricting will reduce the size of council.

Can you explain what's happening here?

- Sure.

So every decade the city council per the city's charter has to redistrict and assess how many seats that we have.

As I mentioned, there are 17 right now.

Basically how it works is there is an odd number between 11 and 25 that will, will fluctuate between based on population.

It's about one ward seat per 25,000 residents.

So based on the last census track, we have lost enough population that that number will go down two 15 ward seats.

That election is in 2025.

We have to reduce those numbers of seats beforehand.

The city actually hired a consultant to begin looking at those maps and that sort of thing.

But the, the argument from Griffin is not only do things cost more, but now some of these council members are going to have a larger geographical area that's more signs, more flyers, and more people on the ground that they're gonna have to account for.

Before this 2025 election, - This whole thing, it's been contentious.

Are we seeing some bad feelings, some bad blood that's left over from the failure of the people's budget?

- Yeah, so the folks that might remember issue 38 last fall, that was a citizen led initiative.

It actually made its way to the ballot and a narrowly failed, which would give money from the budget for people to vote on.

And essentially, you know, council sets the budget, council approves the budget.

This would give a portion of that budget to the people and some of the folks that were opposed to this specific measure that we're talking about of increasing the contribution limits, were part of that group and they are, they continue to meet, they're an active coalition just kind of talking about how to, you know, reduce the influence of the wealthy on politics.

So I think that there definitely are some remnants of there as - Well and added maybe a few fireworks to the final sessions of council before the summer break.

- Oh yes, of course, of course.

It's, it's never without, you know, controversy in, in either direction.

That was a long day, lots of meeting time, lots of legislation that was pushed through.

So yes, and, and the reason I, I, again, we mentioned that it went through quickly, but President Blank Griffin said that that was to make sure that people, people are gonna start campaigning.

As I said, the election is next fall, not just for council people, but for the mayor.

And the summer is a great time to get out in the neighborhoods and be in the streets and, and walk the streets and talk to neighbors.

So his idea was, you know, as we are doing that and fundraising, this gives council people the chance to do that.

- Governor Mike Dewin signed two bills this week passed during the recent special session of the legislature that he ordered.

One changes the state's 90 day candidate certification deadline ensuring President Joe Biden will be on Ohio's ballot in November.

The other bans foreign nationals from contributing to ballot issue campaigns.

Karen, the governor, says he anticipates a legal challenge to the foreign contribution measure due to the inclusion of green card holders in the ban.

Why is this?

- Well, the, the way that he worded it was basically that Ohio, no matter what happens in an election, there seems to be a lawsuit.

And I, I've, I've said something similar to that on this show.

The question became, was the question that came up was whether this ban on foreign nationals contributing to ballot issue campaigns would be effective.

And he said that really depends on what the courts do, anticipating that there will be a lawsuit.

And Republicans in the legislature had even suggested that they anticipate a lawsuit because the way that the ban includes green card holders permanent lawful residency in the United States in foreign nationals apparently conflicts with federal law and how federal law categorizes green card holders versus foreign nationals.

So it seems likely there will be a lawsuit.

It's, it's just kind of part of what happens with election years in Ohio.

- The ban on contributions from foreign nationals comes after the passage of the abortion amendment last fall.

Was that a driver for Republicans before that?

- Oh, I think there's no question.

I mean, I, I, the Republicans have talked for a while about their concerns about international money coming into ballot issue campaigns and, and specifically the 1630 fund, which is this progressive dark money group that gets a lot of money from a Swiss billionaire.

And the 1630 fund donated to the cause to pass issue one, the abortion access amendment last fall, and has also given about $550,000 to the effort to try to bring the overhaul of redistricting onto the ballot this fall.

And now that doesn't necessarily mean that everything the 1630 fund has backed in Ohio has passed.

For instance, the 1630 fund also donated to the effort to pass a criminal justice overhaul in 2018 that would make, that would make some big changes in drug sentencing and that sort of thing that failed.

So, you know, the question is, does the money really matter or are voters really deciding this?

And, and the effort now is to try to crack down on that international money saying we don't want foreign money coming in and affecting our elections.

- If I recall correctly, there were complaints at the time last year when issue one was on the ballot from both sides about out of state money flowing into this campaign.

So are are, should we interpret what's going on here as outta state money is one thing, but out of country, that's a whole other ball of yarn.

- I I guess it's the idea of Americans versus non-Americans.

I mean, DeWine made a comment about how you could be a green card holder and be a billionaire and donate and that could potentially affect elections.

But of course most people are not billionaires.

And he said that this is, that the ban really isn't concerned about the average green card holder.

But yeah, the, the issue of outside money coming into Ohio to pass and, and to effect ballot issues.

I mean we saw that in August last year with the vote on the requirement to have 60% voter approval to change the constitution.

There was a lot of outside money, specifically from a billionaire from Illinois that came into that.

Richard Uline, who is the, the company that he owns is probably in your office right now in terms of the office supplies and, and packaging that his company creates.

Issue one in August, failed issue one in November passed, but there's a lot of outside money in there too, including money from the Catholic church that was opposed to issue one.

So there's a lot of money involved in these issues because they are big and they're high profile.

And Ohio was one of those states had a reproductive rights issue on the ballot.

It was inevitable that we were gonna get a lot of outside money.

- You mentioned the anti gerrymandering campaign that's currently underway.

Can we get a quick update on where we stand on that?

I believe they're about a month out from the signature gathering deadline.

- Yeah, I just talked to somebody with the campaign yesterday and he said that there's no question that they will have substantially more signatures than they're gonna need.

They need about 416,000 valid signatures.

They will be submitting significantly more than that.

Typically, you see these ballot campaigns submit almost twice the number of signatures they need to make sure that all their signatures are valid and they are using paid signature gatherers as well as some very dedicated volunteers, which you've probably seen out, I know I saw some when I came in for opening day, you know, at at the RTA station.

But they're, they're gonna do that.

And also on Tuesday, when you've got the special election for the sixth Congressional district to replace Republican congressman Bill Johnson, one of the chief leaders of this campaign, former Chief Justice Maureen O'Connor is going to be in the sixth district that day and and touring the, the major cities of the sixth district like Canton and Marietta and, and showing just how big that district is.

It goes all the way from the Ohio River all the way up to Youngstown and, and she'll be kind of using that as an opportunity to demonstrate how weird that district is and how gerrymandering has created that.

I guess - Akron Public Schools is contemplating whether or not to reinstate a uniform policy for its K through eighth grade students.

It's taking a survey to get the community's 2 cents.

The district suspended the policy for the last three years due in part to the pandemic and also concerns that many families would be able to, would not be able rather to afford the uniforms.

Abigail, who all is being surveyed for reaction on this policy?

- Yeah, so the survey went out to parents who were really quick to respond according to the district.

They say they got more than a thousand parent emails back within 12 hours of releasing the survey.

And they were largely in favor of another year without uniforms.

60% said that they would like to continue to go without uniforms for at least the next school year.

- There's been a little bit of pushback though in the survey.

Some parents are saying this is confusing.

- Yeah, I think, I think any, I mean the way that they phrased it, it wasn't like, should we bring back uniforms?

Yes, no, they like did it very technically, which I think legally they may have to like, they excited the board policy that they had been not using for the past couple years.

They cited like, should we consider continued suspension of this policy for next school year?

And I think that can kind of get confusing.

So we heard at the board meeting this week that a couple parents were confused about the survey, but I mean it seems like across the board most parents are willing and open to, to going without uniforms for the 20 24, 20 25 school year.

- So they're talking about, or they're asking whether or not to lift the suspension.

But another thing the administration is also considering is whether to rewrite the policy on uniforms and they say that could take a lot - Longer, right?

The district says it could take months to go through the board's, legal contracts and then the board's policy committee to like get it passed out of committee and going to the board as a whole.

And additionally the district has been working on a parent handbook that they're planning to roll out in the fall and so they can't really rehash like such a major issue of uniforms right at this moment.

So I think potentially we could see next year if they decided to dispen to suspend uniforms again for this next school year, we could maybe see a permanent suspension of that rule.

No more uniforms.

It seems like something they kind of are gonna put out off for another school year before making a permanent decision on.

So we'll certainly keep an eye out on that.

- Cleveland City Council has approved an additional $10 million for repairs at the west side market.

The nonprofit Cleveland Public Markets Corporation recently took over operations at the market.

The West side market currently operates at roughly a $700,000 deficit each year.

Abby, the money is earmarked for repairs.

The new nonprofit running the west side market says it's necessary.

- Yeah, so this money just kind of goes towards the $44 million master plan, which much of that does include necessary infrastructure repairs.

We're talking roof repairs.

The elevators go out a lot at, at that vendors use a new HVAC system.

Things of that nature that vendors have been asking for for years by the city owned market council did approve $10 million last year toward the market.

Mayor Justin Bibb wanted 20 million towards those infrastructure repairs.

So we are getting that additional $10 million now.

- So some member of council of course are not happy about the additional funding.

Why is that?

- Well, as you mentioned, the market operates at an annual loss of about $700,000 and there are, there is a pretty decent vacancy rate of the stalls, however, it is one of Cleveland's most visited attractions and many of those people, the city says are do live in the city.

It is a great tourist attraction, but many people do rely on that place to get produce as they, many of the vendors accept food stamps and things of that sort.

So it, they're saying it is still an important part of Cleveland, you know, so the argument is just that why are we putting more money into something that is not making us money?

However, the argument from the nonprofit that has taken over the operations is that we need to invest now in order to turn a profit in the future.

And they have a plan which they say is this master plan to do so.

- So that master plan, do we have any new information on its implementation at this point?

- Sure.

So like I said, much, much of that $44 million is going to go towards these necessary infrastructure repairs that you won't necessarily see if you're visiting the market.

But some of the things that you will see when you visit the market, they're going to add a prepared food hall, which will include a bar, things of that sort, indoor outdoor seating, things that will drive a profit as they say.

So saying that they're looking at how to do that without disrupting the market.

But you probably won't see any construction or physical changes to the building until 2025 - With summer travel and summer road construction underway, governor DeWine has ordered state troopers to crack down on safety violations on the highways.

Karen, the governor points to thousands of work zone crashes in the last few years as his rationale, doesn't he?

- Yeah, I mean, we're talking about 26,000 work zone crashes since 2019.

9,000 people hurt, 99 killed.

Nine of those were road crew workers.

And so that's a real focus here is to try to get people to slow down and, and follow the rules in work zones because they are so dangerous to those work zone crews.

And at the press conference where he announced this, he had two widows of work, I'm sorry, a widow and a mother of a work zone crew member who was struck and killed and, and they, these are terrible stories because these are real people who are working in those work zones.

And so the focus now is gonna be have troopers in the cruisers on the motorcycles in the air to try to really target enforcement in these particular dangerous work zones, which are basically along the major interstates I 70, i 75, I 77, 2 80, and 4 75 near Toledo I 90 in CU County I 71.

These are the areas where there are work zones that are active and there's a real concern about the safety of those workers there.

- And Abigail, there are a number of zones in northeast Ohio.

I heard Karen mention a few of them as well.

There are others that drivers should be aware of.

- Yeah, I think the, the big ones are 90 in, in Cuyahoga County and 77 in Summit County, which I took both of to get here today.

So drive safely please - You, you kept it to the speed limit, right?

Oh, of - Course, always.

And everyone gets very mad at me, but yeah, I, I don't know, is it just me?

I feel like drivers have gotten significantly worse since the pandemic.

There's so many, so much more texting and driving.

I feel so - Well, and that is illegal under a law that went into effect in April.

And actually the state says that since that law went into effect last April, there's been a drop in distracted driving in Ohio.

They've got some data that proves that.

And so they're hoping that this is the kind of thing this and also the efforts to try to increase seatbelt usage in Ohio.

Ohio is at a 20 year low when it comes to the usage of seat belts, which I don't understand.

If you've got a car that was made past, I don't know, 2000, doesn't your car beep at you if you don't put your seatbelt on?

But maybe some people don't mind that.

I don't know.

- With increasing urgency and loudness, definitely.

Yes, - Exactly, exactly.

But one of the other things I wanted to mention here is then this effort on making work zones safer.

The state is piloting some things like trying to communicate with navigation apps and warn drivers that there's a work zone coming up to try to communicate with commercial truck drivers and try to warn them of a slowdown that's coming up.

Putting rumble strips in work zones to slow people down.

All of these are efforts to try to get people to slow down as they approach those work zones so that the whole thing is safer for everybody.

- Monday on the Sound of Ideas on 89 7 WKSU, we'll discuss the skyrocketing costs for home and auto insurance and how it's impacting Northeast Ohioans.

I'm Andrew Meyer in for Mike McIntyre.

Thanks for watching.