(bright music) - Cleveland City Hall isn't the only place seeing a transition to new younger leadership.

In politics, nonprofits and businesses, the region is seeing a sea change at the top.

The Ohio houses response to last year's protest is a bill passed out of committee, toughening the penalties for protestors.

Critics say it'll stifle free speech.

And how much training should teachers have to be allowed to carry firearms in school?

They're debating that in Columbus.

Ideas, is next.

(lively music) Hello and welcome to Ideas, I'm Mike McIntyre.

Thanks for joining us.

Cleveland Mayor Elect Justin Bibb announced his transition team leaders this week, and City Hall isn't the only place in transition.

New leaders are taking over major institutions throughout Northeast Ohio.

And Ohio House Committee has advanced a bill that would create new charges and penalties for protestors.

This prompted by last year's Black Lives Matter protests.

And there's debate about how much firearms training teachers should have before being allowed to carry guns in school.

Less than two dozen hours, or hundreds.

We'll talk about those stories and much more on this edition of the Reporters Roundtable.

Joining me this week from Idea Stream Public Media, Host Producer Glenn Forbes, and Multiple Media Producer, Gabriel Kramer, and in Columbus, Statehouse News Bureau Chief Karen Kasler.

Let's get ready to Roundtable.

Cleveland Mayor Elect Justin Bibb announced his transition team this week managing the transition will be Bibb campaign veterans Bradford Davey of the Fund for Economic Future and Jessica Travisano of Northwest Neighborhoods Community Development.

She also helped drive the effort to add public comment to city council meetings, might recognize the name.

Joining them will be six transition co-chairs, Bibb says the group is diverse and dynamic.

They're charged with filling his cabinet and staff and setting direction when Bibb takes office on January 3rd, Gabriel, the co-chairs are drawn from both the business and nonprofit sectors of Cleveland.

Bibb says it's an example of his collaborative style and bringing people together.

- Right, so in the capstone episode of the after Jackson podcast, the wonderful project by the great Ideation Public Media is Nick Castelle.

Justin Bibb in his last episode, talks about what he wants for his cabinet.

And he's talking about he wants people who have experienced the city government.

He wants people who work in the private sector and the nonprofit worlds diverse in world experience, diverse in work experience.

And while he says that about his cabinet his potential cabinet, it reflects what he's saying about what he wants for his transition team.

So that buzzword, private public partnership partnership.

Yeah, I guess, I mean, could we say that's a George Voinovich buzzword that, it's page of his playbook.

So he's really telling that a lot.

And this seems to be right in line with what Bibb is saying.

There are a number of people that are on the transition committee, their co-chairs that are recognizable here on the sound of ideas.

Erica Anthony she's the executive director of the Ohio Transformation Fund.

She's been on the program a number of times, Paul Clark, the former national or former regional president of PNC bank in Cleveland, Richard Gibson, the pastor of Elizabeth Baptist church, Phyllis Seven Harris, who's been on the show often as the executive director of the LGBT community center of greater Cleveland, Darryl McNair, president and CEO of MVP Plastics corporation is actually bigger than plastics now.

He does a whole lot of stuff.

And then John Ryan, the former labor leader, top aid to Senator Sherrod Brown, that is a packed roster.

- And these are people like we said, comes from all different walks of life.

And that's what you want.

I mean, ideally if you want this basket, I have ideas.

If you want people who provide different perspectives from different worlds and you don't want it to just be people that you're familiar with, you don't want it to be people that you have experience with.

You want to be challenged in ideals so that you really have an idea of what the community is thinking as a whole all around.

- And I'm looking at that list that I just named many of them minorities.

So what we're seeing not only is a change in leadership in City Hall with a young black mayor.

We're also seeing these changes in a whole lot of non-profits and businesses throughout the city where it seems like leadership is getting browner.

And in this case, Glen, we see that the mayor has essentially said, listen, we're committed to diversity.

We're gonna show it by the base committee that starts it.

- Yeah, I think that's the goal.

And I also think there aren't a lot of coincidences in life or in politics, right.

When Justin Bibb says, I want to be a collaborative mayor, I want that to be my approach.

That's kind of implying that the last guy didn't do that so much.

And and I think that, that Kevin Kelly in Justin Bibb mind that Kevin Kelly was going to kind of continue that.

I think if you look at the last 16 years as mayors, is along time, when we talk about mayor Frank Jackson, I think if you look at the last half of that administration, he did close ranks a little bit, right?

There's always gonna be political cronyism too.

And I'm sure that it'll be in some form in the Bibb campaign.

But I say that to say that the Jackson administration certainly was not averse to some of that political cronyism too.

No, administration is right.

There's always gonna be to the Victor go the spoils kind of idea there.

But beyond that, when you look at this idea of being more responsive to citizens, I think from a reporter's perspective, you're hoping that this administration won't be where Foyer requests, freedom of information, act requests go to die.

We're hoping that there's going to be... - It's very slow death.

- We're hoping that there's gonna be more transparency.

He talks about, Justin Bibb talks about a modernized city hall, and to be more responsive with things like the mayor's action line and things of that nature.

So it really, I think is gonna the goal is to have a fresh approach, a younger approach, a more modern approach to use some of the words Bibb is saying now the challenge is to actually do it.

And the challenge is to actually be that collaborative mayor and not kind of get bogged down into, well, I know these people, I trust them and we're gonna close ranks again.

That's the challenge.

- You mentioned Nick Castells podcast and in his interview with Justin Bibb this week, which you can get that by going to ideastream.org/afterJackson.

And you can listen to the whole interview.

I think it's about a half hour where they really get into some of the details.

But as Glenn said, he talked about a city hall, 2.0, he's talking about establishing someone whose job is basically customer experience that makes sure that when you call city hall, someone takes that call and follows up on whether your trash can was replaced or whatever it might be.

That's the kind of nitty gritty mayoral stuff that I think has to happen for people to believe that some progress is being made.

But on the other hand, there's also a lot of big picture things.

- And that's a tarp too much on this podcast.

So we obviously would love everyone to listen to it.

But listening back to the interview with Justin Bibb, that Nick did is one of the things he talks about, that nitty gritty stuff.

He's talking about a lot of technical technological things in city hall.

We've all been to the city of Cleveland website.

It's a nightmare.

It's hard to navigate.

It looks like it was made in 1997, but in the podcast, he's talking about how some computers in city hall are on windows seven, some cubes theaters, and city hall and windows 10.

They don't communicate with each other.

- Some people in city hall don't know what window is.

- Exactly, right?

Some of the windows he watched us.

So like, I think this idea that technologically, they need to be on the same page.

It's 2021, these are essentials.

And if we're going to communicate with the people, that's how the people communicate.

The fax machines are unplugged, hopefully, right?

We have to be able to communicate with people through the internet.

And for him to have that, that train of thought is something that we haven't seen in city hall for a long time.

(bright music) - Cleveland mayor elect Justin Bibb is just one of many new leaders in a sea change at the top and politics, business and nonprofits in Cleveland.

This week that George Gund Foundation announced Anthony Richardson, who runs the Nord Family Foundation and Amherst will succeed David Abbott as president of Gund.

In February, the greater Cleveland partnership named Baiju Shaw as its new president and CEO taking the reins from long-time leader, Joe Roman, Bethia Burke took over the Fund for our Economic Future in March, 2020, succeeding, Brad Whitehead United Way of Greater Cleveland is looking for its next leader.

Current president and CEO Auggie Napoli will retire in 2022.

There's a whole bunch of other changes that are happening.

University circle incorporated is going to be getting a new head.

The downtown Cleveland Alliance has a new leader in Michael Deemer.

We're talking about these are institutions where the leaders of them have been on this show quite often because they make a lot of news and the kind of change we're looking at here, Glen is not minor.

We're talking about sort of a, a whole turning of the page.

- Yeah, it's a wave.

I don't know if you've used that word before.

I think you did, but it is kind of a wave of new leadership.

And I think it reflects a lot of different things.

I mean, I think in our own personal lives, we can say, you know, COVID has changed some perspectives.

And I think if you look at not only COVID, but I should say civil unrest as well, more of a focus on equity and things of that nature.

So I think you have some people who have been, well-established maybe looking to move on, do some other things or kind of ease into another phase of their life if you will.

But there's a kind of a crop of young.

I don't wanna to say like-minded, but younger people who are thinking about things like equity and who are thinking about things like transforming the city and the next 30 to 40 years, there's that group of people who are saying, well, we think it's our turn now, and we're ready for it.

And I think these organizations are kind of feeling the same way.

It was looking at a Crain's article on this and Rick Cohen, chief communications officer of at the National Council of Nonprofits.

Sometimes timing just happens to be coincidental, but you're seeing kind of a confluence of regular turnover, some slightly delayed turnover that didn't take place over the last year.

But I think it all stems from 2020.

Really, if you look at COVID what the lockdowns and what that did, and then of course, some of the civil unrest, it gets a lot of people thinking in a lot of different ways.

And I think it is kind of a new wave in a new era with a lot of these organizations.

- And Gabe, it appears as though when we're looking at these Anthony Richardson as a 38 year old African-American guy, native of Lorraine, we've had him on the program to just a great guy, Margaret Bernstein, who's on the board of Gund, made a point to say, this is someone who has lived experience.

When we talk about wanting to push diversity, equity and inclusion and make that part of what our mission is, this is inherent to this person it's innate and that's important.

- Right, it's so it's a little bit annoying for BiPAP individuals because in the last year it became, DEI practices kind of became a buzz.

It became trendy because of what was happening with protests in 2020.

But the outcome I think, is something to look forward to because what it means is it got a lot of people thinking it got people who were the heads of organizations thinking, hmm, this is something we actually need to really think about shame on us for, I think about it sooner.

But now here we are.

And now we're handing the Baton over to people who have these lived experiences because you can't teach that you can't get that from a college education.

That's something that's in you.

That's something that you have based on who you are and how you were brought up and how you look.

So it certainly is a great change.

And to hear, the old guard willing to pass the baton and willing to make those changes and be in support of that.

As a BiPAP individual, you have to be excited about that in the city of Cleveland.

- And speaking of that, I remember having Brad Whitehead on this show, who is a white male, who was the head of the Fund for Economic Future.

And he said, I'm stepping down for that very reason.

It's time for younger people.

It's time for a more diverse crew of people to take over, not just this institution, but all of the others as well.

- And let's not forget, like I said, 10 minutes ago, this is what the city looks like.

The city is majority black, where there are more brown people in the city.

There are more Asian people in the city.

This is how we represent the people we're serving.

- Karen, let's talk about, this is Cleveland.

And we have all this change, including a change in city hall.

What are you seeing in Columbus or elsewhere in the state?

And some of this change will be what people will decide at the polls.

And it seems as though, in Ohio people aren't really that into change.

- Well, when you look at change from a statewide level, at least in this respect, I'm just not sure that we are seeing the same kind of change that the urban areas are.

When you look at the state house and the executive offices and the people who are considering running for those positions.

I mean, you look at the US Senate race, for instance, there is one minority candidate.

She is Morgan Harper.

She's running on the democratic side.

Everybody else in that race is white.

It's overwhelmingly male, in the governor's race.

You've got three announced candidates.

Well, okay, let's take that back.

You got to announce candidates on the democratic side.

One is a woman, both are white on the Republican side, three announced candidates.

All three are white men.

The legislature is overwhelmingly white, a lot of men as well.

And this is been a trend.

I think this has been pretty typical for what we've seen over the last 10 years or so at least.

I mean, probably going back a lot further than that.

So I think the change that's happening in the urban areas really is not moving up to the state house, but it certainly seems like that's the thing that will happen.

I mean, you can't deny what the demographics are saying and how the state is changing.

Ohio's population did grow in the last census, but not nearly enough to keep up with other states, which is why we're losing a congressional seat.

- Right.

- So these are all things that come into play here, I think.

(bright music) - And Ohio house committee advanced a bill this week that would increase the charges and penalties for protestors house bill 109 is also known as the Ohio Law and Order Act.

But opponents say it's unfair to people exercising their first amendment rights.

- Certainly a lot of people are thinking it's almost an attack on the protesters.

And I think when you look at what was happening last year, it was apparently difficult for law enforcement to decide what was peaceful and what was not peaceful.

And I think a lot of people who are against this bill are saying it almost gives law enforcement even more leeway of deciding what is, it was not what is peaceful.

So I think obviously I think we look around downtown and we see businesses that are still not back in business.

We see some buildings that are still empty, and I think that's unfortunate.

We don't want to see people harmed.

We don't want to see, businesses damaged that happened.

But at some point I think what people who are on the opposite side of saying no are asking for, at some point, can we listen to the message of report testers are saying and do something about that rather than doing something about protections for law enforcement or what can law enforcement do?

It's not a necessarily a law enforcement mindset that people want.

They want people to think about the issue at hand, which is police brutality and what people are protests, where black lives matter.

- Karen some of the criticism of this protest is one that it's broadly written.

It's vague, it could lead to any demonstrator being labeled a riot.

Basically if you had five people blocking an intersection that could meet the definition of riot.

- Yeah and I think the real concern for people who are protesting this protest bill, and one of the things that they protested this week is that there was no opportunity to speak out on the bill, that it was only written testimony that was being accepted.

So that here's a bill that it sponsors say protect the free speech rights of protesters.

And yet people who were protesting, this could not speak freely to lawmakers during this committee meeting.

But what they're concerned about the opponents of this bill is that it's so broadly written that it will stifle protest in general, that people will be so worried about getting sued by a police officer.

Because for instance, this bill does not only allow for police officers, to Sue people for injuries, but also allows police officers to Sue for false complaints.

And it never defines what a false complaint is.

Either whether it's false or complaint.

I mean, a complaint is not only a courtroom legal action, but it can also be a something you filed the police department complaining about a police officer and who defines what is false in this case.

So they're concerned about people potentially staying quiet about problems that they'd had with police officers, because they're afraid of this provision in the bill.

So there's just a real concern about that as well as there is a part of this bill that would allow for these shutting down and the seizing of assets of organizations and individuals that are involved in some of these protests.

So there's a real, and that the ACLU says really goes back to some language that is in this bill that they last saw in anti-terrorism legislation after 911, that it almost implies that the bill wants to treat some of these groups as domestic terrorists.

So it's a real worry for groups that support free speech rights and protest that this is broadly written to the, where people will be so afraid that they won't want to come out and protest at all.

- It's gone through committee and we know the legislature has makeup.

So chances of this sailing through our high, or do you hear any kind of pushback that's enough to at least to alter it in any way?

- I think knowing the legislature's make up, this looks like it's a bill, certainly in the house that would go through.

I would think the house has a super majority in terms of the Republican side.

This is one of several bills that really kind of came out of the George Foley protests of last year.

Not all of them are controversial though.

I mean, one of the bills that's kind of part of this package would really seek to protect first off our first responders and people who could be assaulted even off duty that passed the Senate unanimously.

That's one of the bills that's considered part of this whole package, but this one in particular, I think has some real concern because of the opposition from groups that often protest, but state lawmakers have been pointing to what was seen in cities in Cleveland and Columbus last summer, where you've had businesses that were boarded up, you had a really protest that really kind of got out of control in some respects it sometimes.

And saying that this is a response to that.

And this bill in particular is designed to not only protect free speech rights of protesters, but really to protect police officers, to protect small businesses, to protect public safety.

But the question is, does it go too far for people to still be able to come out and protest and to do that without throwing bricks and without being violent.

I mean, nobody is defending that part of these protests.

The ACL use very clear.

Other groups have very clear.

We're not defending that part, but we are defending people's opportunity to peaceably assemble and to make their voices heard.

(bright music) - Another bill passed out of committee and moving toward a full Ohio house vote.

Would enabled teachers and school staff to carry guns on school grounds without completing rigorous peace officer training.

And the bill would enable teachers to carry guns at school once they completed a 20 hour training course by comparison peace officer training courses are more than 600 hours of training.

In June the Supreme court ruled in a Butler county case.

The current law allows school personnel to be armed only after completing that more rigorous 600 hour course.

And if the school employee had 20 years of peace officer experience, that was another measure that you could then carry a gun.

That case overturned a Butler county school district policy arming teachers enacted after the 2016 school shooting there.

So Karen, what we're basically having an argument about is how much training is enough training for a teacher in a classroom to carry a gun?

Is it 20 hours or 600 hours?

We're pretty far apart.

- Right, I mean, the bill comes from representative Thomas Hall, a Republican from Middletown.

Middletown was the side of a school shooting that you just mentioned in 2016, where four people were injured.

A 14 year old came into the Madison junior, senior high school and shot some people.

Thomas Hall, representative Thomas Hall's, father was the school resource officer who chased that shooter out of the building.

And so this kind of comes from that Thomas Hall's bill would basically say that you don't need they would get rid of the Ellen and state law that says that you have to have this peace officer training, which is 729 hours of training.

- That a little more than 600, it's more than 700, wow.

- Well, it's more than 600.

- It is.

- 729 peace officer training.

- It nothing correct.

- Exactly, you're absolutely right.

But what the argument has been is that that's a lot of training for somebody to go through.

And a lot of it does not have anything to do with dealing with potential threats in schools.

And so this bill would say, hey, if you've gone through the concealed carry permit training, which is eight hours, and then you have this other additional training of 20 hours, including two hours of firearms training, then you as a select staffer at a particular school district, that's allowing this should be able to carry your weapon into schools.

And there are a lot of groups that think that that's just simply not enough, including police unions and teacher's unions and parents.

I mean, parents were the ones who sued the Butler county, the Madison local school district in Butler county over the change in this policy saying this wasn't enough training for somebody to be armed in the classroom like this.

And the Supreme court agreed saying, state law says you still have to have all these hours.

- Right.

- That would change this.

And now the Ohio house is gonna take it up.

- What's interesting is the legislators are keen for this, but teachers, unions, police unions, they are not necessarily for it.

And you just mentioned, and at least in the case of Butler county parents.

- Yeah, and police officers and police unions, for instance, have talked about how police officers should be involved in coming up with standards for training the peace officer training commission for instance, they've suggested that that group should actually advise and come up with the training and put together the training, the Buckeye Firearms Association, which is probably the state's leading firearms lobbying organization.

It supports this bill.

And it has actually done training in schools for people who want to be armed.

And so there's some support from that side.

But when you look at the list of people who have testified for this bill versus the ones who testified against it, you had hundreds of people who came out against it, and only a handful who came out for it, but it did pass on a party line boat.

And as we were just talking, when you look at the makeup of the legislature, it seems likely that this bill will pass at least the Ohio house.

- And by the way, you don't need to have training of any kind to be a gun owner in Ohio.

And there used to be training for concealed carry permits.

I actually went through the training for concealed carry, and I have to say it was kind of a joke.

It was a day worth of one of the guys in the class.

I think he put the wrong bullets in the magazine.

I think he took a shot and the slide came back and took off half his thumb.

He got a certificate, wow.

So you just wonder about that training, even when we were talking about how limited it could be.

And then we're talking about getting rid of that.

So it'd be interesting to talk about what the standards are for training, as you mentioned, that that's what the police officers want to do is have a hand in that.

(bright music) The Ohio Supreme court will decide whether governor Mike DeWine had the authority to call an early end to a federal program that provided $300 per week in additional pandemic assistance to unemployed Ohioans.

Program could have lasted through labor day, but the governor ended it in June saying what's preventing people from returning to work and was negatively impacting Ohio's businesses.

Karen, the Ohio chamber of commerce requested that the checks end ad now we have this suite that's being brought about as a result of it.

First of all, I do want to say, because there was a question by one of our listeners, the governor's son, Pat DeWine, a Supreme court justice has recused himself, but the Supreme court will make a decision on whether or not he was right.

- Right, the Supreme court has decided to take up this case.

What happened is there was a lawsuit filed by democratic, former attorney general, Mark Dan on behalf of about 200,000 Ohioans after that program was ended in late June saying that this program should continue.

And the governor didn't have the authority to reject that federal money and end that federal program that the state one in the lower car court Dan won and the appeals court.

So now the Ohio Supreme court is going to take this up.

And so what could happen is that there would be a decision here that could affect, again, some 200,000 Ohioans, and it could be retroactive to when the program ended in June, the program ended at the federal level in on labor day.

So this could mean a lot of money for that group of individuals.

It also really decides whether the governor has the authority to do this.

- And you'd get the back pay.

I mean, it would be, he stopped it in June.

It should've gone through labor day.

So you'd get a check.

It would conceivably for that money for all of us.

- That's my understanding.

I mean, I think that's that's what they're arguing.

- Coming up Monday on the sound of ideas on 90.3 WCPN we'll bring you the final community discussion on the Cleveland police consent decree, the United Way of Greater Cleveland and the Cleveland NAACP put together the monthly conversation throughout the year.

This one focuses on community engagement, recruitment, and diversity.

I'm Mike McIntyre.

Thanks so much for being with us and stay safe.

(bright music)