It's the Sound of Ideas Reporters Roundtable from Ideastream Publi I'm Mike McIntyre.

So glad you could join us.

The Browns officially broke ground on a new Brook Park football complex yesterday, and on the same day, planners hired a new consultant to determine how to develop the Cleveland lakefront without a stadium.

Akron's newest council member was as surprised as anyone that he was chosen to fill a vacant seat.

Cleveland Public Schools officials contend hundreds of layoffs are necessary.

Teachers and parents disagreed loudly at a board meeting this week.

And a Cleveland City Council member says data centers suck up power and water and may not be worth it.

He wants the city to slap on a one year moratorium while zoning is addressed.

Joining me to discuss all of this week's top news from Ideastream Public Deputy editor of News Glenn Forbes.

Good to see you, Glenn.

Good morning Mike.

And also with us from News5, rep Hey, Michelle.

Good to be here.

Good to have you here as well.

And in Columbus, a woman lobbying for a one-year moratorium on Guardians losses, Ideastream Statehouse News Bureau chief Karen Kasler.

Hey, Karen.

Hey.

Absolutely, absolutely.

You need a moratorium on those?

Well, we won the last game, so everything is looking good there.

All right, you can weigh in, by the way, on any topic, by sending us an email.

SOI@ideastream.org is the way to get through.

Let's get ready to roundtable.

There were shovels that look like guitars and a model of the future home of the Browns, complete with a Dawg Pound that looks more like an impenetrable wall, as the team broke ground on its multibillion dollar football complex in Brook Park, and NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell was there, and Ohio Governor Mike DeWine.

And the owners were there, some players and lots of politicians, but not Cleveland Mayor Justin Bibb nor Cuyahoga County Executive Chris Ronayne.

They lost their battle to keep the team in Downtown Cleveland.

The enclosed stadium, the state's first, is scheduled to open for the 2029 season.

Michelle, this was, I would call it, an event.

Yes, yes.

Accurate.

A ceremonial groundbreaking because as we and other news outlets have reported, they've been moving dirt on the site since October.

And they started deep digging in early March.

The Haslam made a point to talk about the investment that they're making, and I heard one particular quote from Jimmy Haslam.

He says all the investment that's going on around here is essentially two people, both of whom own sports teams.

One is him and the Browns and the other, Dan Gilbert and the Cavaliers, and basically imploring others to follow along like, even though this is a more than $3 billion all-in investment, some of it public money, a lot of it is their money.

He's saying other people need to start taking some risk to to make this what it could be.

That's right.

One of the things he said, as part of those remarks, was that we need to be playing more offense and less defense as a region, and that came up in the context of a discussion around whether this new stadium will help us eventually land a Super Bowl.

And Roger Goodell, the NFL commissioner, said, well, the stadium is certainly Super Bowl quality, but there are a lot of other things Northeast Ohio would need to get that event, including a lot more hotel rooms.

By the way, I hope his philosophy in football is not more offense, less defense, maybe more of each.

That would be good.

More offense and more defense, particularly when you look at the makeup of the Browns on the field right now, which also came up and continues to come up.

By the way, the fact that the fans are wanting a winning team and Haslam, Jimmy Haslam again said yesterday, look, we haven't done a very good job of of the winning part.

But we're, you know, we're desperately trying to do that.

Let me start with the good news.

Roger Goodell, commissioner of the NFL, says the draft will come back to Cleveland, he was very complimentary of the way the city handled it in 2021, still had Covid restrictions.

He says with this stage now, you know, the draft will be back in Cleveland to Michelle's point the Super Bowl.

He almost had to be prompted to continue with that.

Answers like, you want me to keep going and talk about the Super Bowl?

Yeah, please.

So hotels we need like 60,000 ro He talked about hotels.

He talked about airports.

And he said, look, Los Angeles, which is a competing city, has like 100,000 hotel rooms, you know, available right now.

So there was this call for more, investment in the infrastructure around it.

I will say that I think the Super Bowl stuff is a little overblown, and I'll tell you why.

The NFL and the players don't like going to cold weather cities for the Super Bowl, even if it's indoors, even if it's in.

And that's been the argument when people, the dome people, for the last 30, 40 years have said, if we had a dome, we could have a Super Bowl because they won't play a Super Bowl outside in the elements.

Right.

Your point is, they don't want to go to dinner and walk outside in the elements either.

You want to go to a warm weather city.

They don't.

And I think that some of this construction is going to be about keeping people indoors, particularly because it's near Hopkins Airport and things like that.

But Detroit and Minnesota are cold weather cities that have hosted the Super Bowl, but it doesn't happen very often.

So maybe Cleveland gets lucky and gets one Super Bowl in the life span of this stadium, but it's not like it's going to be here 3 or 4 times on a rotation with, you know, New Orleans and Miami.

And that's where the players and the owners and all the power players want to go.

They don't necessarily want to go to Cleveland, Detroit or Minnesota, regardless of how nice the stadiums are.

So yeah, the stadium may be Super Bowl quality, but then you've got infrastructure and you have climate to consider as well.

Well, we're getting ahead of ourselves by talking about Super Bowl right now.

We're know whether the team can move in there by 2029, and whether this is a good bet for Cleveland.

It certainly seems like the governor, Karen, thinks it's a good bet for the state.

He talked about how the state doesn't have something like this and needed it.

Well, he's been on board with this for a long time.

I mean, Haslam made reference to sitting down with the governor about two years ago to go over some of the specifics here.

And, of course, DeWine had talked about this as being something he wanted to see in terms of his budget last year, and he included a tax on sports gambling operators.

That, of course, was taken out and the legislature replace that with the plan to draw from unclaimed funds.

But DeWine's been on this for a long time.

He said clearly at this event that he thinks this is the right thing to do for Ohio, that Ohio as a state has helped with sports facilities for many years and that this will allow the state to continue to help with sports facilities because, you know, other facilities have also come forward saying, well, if the Browns are getting $600 million, we want to get some money too.

Well, they haven't gotten $600 million yet, and that's still a matter of contention.

It's in court.

What happens if it ends up being you can't use those funds that they had earmarked for this, the unclaimed funds?

Is there a plan B?

Would the legislature go back to this tax, taxing sports betting idea?

That's a good question.

I think right now the plan B is basically that the Haslams pay the difference there for a while, while the legislature and the governor work that out.

And of course, when we have a new governor next year, that will be something that that new governor will maybe have to deal with.

But yeah, you've got these battles going on in state and federal court that's preventing the transfer of this money.

It's about $1 billion the state wants to transfer over to this fund, 600 million of it goes to the Browns Stadium, and then another 400 million goes to about 14 other professional sports organizations who said they wanted to use some of that money to upgrade their facilities.

Right.

And they are in line, by the way, the line is out the door for people that want money for those sports facilities.

And as you said, the governor said, this is something the state ought to do.

I thought it was interesting, though, that there are a number of people running in the Republican primary against sitting Republicans who voted for this, who are saying billionaires giveaway, and we shouldn't be doing this kind of thing.

So it isn't even just Democrats don't think it's a good idea or Republicans don't.

You see people challenging those who approve this, who don't agree with the governor, that the that the public should be fundin Yeah, this has become a bipartisan issue.

And you're right that it has come up in primaries.

And of course, Tuesday is the primary for Republicans and Democrats.

And yeah, there are there are people on both sides of the aisle who say, this is not what we want our state dollars to be used for.

And so that that's becoming an issue.

Michelle, the city of Brook Park is also putting in money.

They're going to borrow money and put in something like near $ Jimmy Haslam talked yesterday about how that's important money because it's early money.

That's right.

And the state's money was supposed to be early money, actually.

Jerry Cirino, state senator, recently told me that the state's money was supposed to be the first money in, the Brook Park deal is not done yet, but the proposal on the table is that, a new entity created to own the stadium, called a New Community Authority, would issue bonds over decades.

That money would be paid back using admissions, tax revenues and income tax revenues from Brook Park.

This is all part of a development agreement.

A really broad document that we're likely to see in May.

Brook park's mayor told me he expects those discussions at city council to start this month, and he's hoping there will be a vote on it in June.

Okay, so by the 2029 season, is the plan, Glenn, for the team to move into this new facility?

What happens then to the space the stadium currently occupies on the lakefront?

Yesterday, the Waterfront authority in Cleveland, the nonprofit North Coast Waterfront Development Corporation, hired a team of planners to look again at that.

And the idea now is there was a plan a couple of years ago, but it's time to look at it anew, because now you have a whole lot more acreage and this big space.

How do you program it?

What do you do with it?

Yeah, I was I was just going to say it's so much has happened in the story.

You almost forget that two years ago the city commissioned a study and it was, you know, well publicized and all this other stuff, but because that included the stadium in it, that's kind of like scrapped.

Now you got to throw that out.

So as you mentioned, the site grows from 37.5 acres to nearly 60 acres and no plans yet for the 22 acres now occupied by the stadium.

By the way, great to have Steve Litt at Ideastream.

Right.

The great story on Ideastream.org.

The firm is MVRDV.

It's in Rotterdam based in the Netherlands.

They've worked on San Francisco, Shanghai, Rotterdam itself.

Oslo.

So this group is going to come in and work with a local developer, DiGeronimo Development.

And they say, look, we want plenty of Cleveland input.

We want this to fit Cleveland.

We don't want it to look like, you know, I'm looking for the quote, but like, you know, something landed from outer space and just ended up.

That's exactly it.

Almost ended up on the on the lakefront.

They want something that makes sense, for Cleveland.

So, interestingly enough, we don't know how much we know that the city of Cleveland paid $900,000 for this study, two years ago.

We don't know how much the waterfront, Development Corporation paid for this because it's a nonprofit, right?

We can guess it's less than 3 million because, their head Scott Skinner said it's going to be paid out of the $3 million seed money that that came over three years from the city of Cleveland.

So we've got a developer, an international developer.

We've got a local developer working with them.

And, they say that they're going to, you know, do everything they can to talk with the community and figure out what the city and the surrounding areas want to put on this lakefront.

And I want to agree with you about Steve Litt.

I think he's one of the two best real estate and development reporters in Cleveland.

The other one sitting right here.

So the two of them together, what a team.

When we talk about that property, and Glenn just mentioned, Michelle, that it's now 60 acres of property, one of the reasons you need to take a new look at it is they had housing and other things that were along the lakefront because it didn't matter.

There was a stadium.

The view wasn't a big deal.

Now what goes there might be blocked by what was planned before.

So a whole new look at that.

But the other important point that I read in Steve's piece was that this does not include Burke Lakefront Airport.

That's still in play, but this plan is not envisioning that.

That's that's right.

But the North Coast Waterfront Development Corporation, that nonprofit tasked with shepherding the city's lakefront vision, is taking the conversations around Burke into consideration here.

So the previous lakefront plan for the North Coast Harbor area was heavy on public space.

One thing that's come up in some of these conversations at City Council about Burke is, well, if you have a ton of public space over at the Burke site, assuming the airport closes, maybe you use some of that land where the stadium now sits for something else.

So.

So it's not like the planning for the stadium site in the land around it is happening in a vacuum.

All right.

I mentioned, one of the two best development reporters.

And so let's talk about some of the other work that you've been doing this week, the Rockefeller, Rockefeller building, that's been vacant for some time.

Looks like something's going to start happening there.

Yes.

The K&D group, a local developer that has done a lot of downtown building conversions, most of them from office to apartments.

Acquired the Rockefeller building on Tuesday.

And I went through it with folks from K&D and Geis Companies at the end of last week.

It is a heavy lift.

The building has really been trash, but it's it's a hugely historically significant building.

You know, it was built by John D Rockefeller, finished in 1905.

It's a major contributor to the skyline and the warehouse district.

And the plan is a roughly $100 million redevelopment to turn the building into apartments and build a new parking garage with about 500 spaces behind the building, with a rooftop deck for apartment tenants that would have a swimming pool and other amenities.

So not a lakefront development, not a riverfront development.

Those are the two things we've been talking about somewhere in between.

So we're talking about activity happening in a number of pockets in Cleveland.

Yes.

And and filling in those gaps is important, right?

You don't you don't want to have isolated islands of development.

You want to have a continuous fabric from that riverfront to the lakefront, right.

All right.

Cleveland could join a number of other Ohio cities pushing back against data centers.

An ordinance proposed by Ward 15 Council Member Charles Slife would put a one year moratorium on new data centers.

So why Glenn?

Well, as you mentioned, one year moratorium.

He says this is time to give this, give the city time to review zoning code, assess infrastructure demands, things of that nature.

He has called data centers exploitative, toward residents.

There's concerns, of course, about electricity and water.

And when you think about, the city of Cleveland, those under Cleveland public power, they've had days long power outages.

There have been some issues with the grid and then the near West Side.

Or I should say that the near west suburbs in Lakewood, which covers, some of Cleveland as well with First Energy, with First Energy, they've had some issues with with their electricity as well.

So that's the concern.

The concern is, using, these resources, the electric, the water.

When people in Cleveland are already struggling with the grid, and things of that nature.

So they're worried about, you know, in the quote from Charles Slife is, you know, it's not an irrational concern when you need power for medical equipment or food or whatever.

So he's calling for a one year moratorium to give the city some time to review some of these codes to, look at some of the intensive uses of, of power and water that these data centers create.

And is this something that Cleveland can handle?

And, Michelle, it wasn't just power that was a very important part of it, and water usage.

But also are we getting the bang for the buck for all of that?

All of that.

It costs, in regards to power and water, what kind of jobs are we getting?

And that's one of the points he was trying to.

Yeah.

The the calculus around data centers is is complicated.

They don't create a lot of permanent jobs.

They do create a lot of construction jobs.

So the construction industry is very supportive of these projects, communities that have decided to move forward with data center projects are doing so in large part because of the property tax revenue they generate, because they're hugely valuable buildings.

So looking at them just based on jobs, it only shows you part of the picture.

What he's asking for is a moratorium, not a ban.

In that year of moratorium, what needs to happen?

I think one of the things he pointed out is the number of vacant parcels that there are in Cleveland.

So there's the potential for all of these other kinds of developments and maybe, who knows, maybe they'd all be data centers.

So let's take a pause and look at these vacant parcels and how they should be zoned.

Yeah.

So so really what this is about is what is Cleveland's zoning code say?

Is there a lack of clarity in Cleveland's zoning code around what a data center is and where you're allowed to build one?

And a lot of communities are wrestling with this now, realizing that, you know, they have zoning codes that were written before data centers.

The large ones, at least, were a big thing.

I think it's important to take a step back and say there are a bunch of data centers in Cleveland already.

There are a few within a stone's throw of where we're sitting right now in data centers can range from something that's basically in a closet to like a 2,000,000 square foot campus in a rural area with, you know, 6 or 8 buildings.

Right?

So, so the range of data centers is very wide.

I think it's unlikely that you'd see one of those giant projects in Cleveland just because we have a lot of vacant land.

But it's not all next to each other, and it's not necessarily the right sized sites or shaped sites.

You know, we're not talking about like big rectangles.

Sure.

So, so important to be realistic about that.

And Karen, we've talked about there are a lot of places in Ohio where there are those big rectangles, and we're looking at them in Lorain County and others here.

What about statewide?

Is, is the data center issue gaining steam with legislators who are concerned or excited about having more?

Well, I can tell you that it's become a real issue for voters and for people in general talking about it, because Ohio is like the fifth most populous state in terms of data center sightings.

We have over 200 data centers in Ohio.

I moderated a discussion before the Columbus Metropolitan Club last week about data centers and the questions that come up, you know, about the environmental concerns, about the transparency involving the contracts that bring those data centers to communities.

People are really concerned.

And of course, you've got this effort now to try to gather signatures to put a constitutional amendment before voters in November to ban data centers that use more than 25MW monthly.

I think that's probably going to be very difficult for that group to get done by the deadline of July 1st, but still, it's becoming a key issue, I think, and you're going to hear a lot more about it.

I think as we get toward November.

Well, let me jump to this.

We're going to talk about it later.

But Jerry Cirino, the senator from Kirtland, is bringing back the idea that it should be harder to amend the Constitution.

You just announced one amendment that's up, but it seems to me, and he wants it to be the 60% threshold which Ohioans already voted down a couple of years ago.

My question is, doesn't it seem like it's already really hard to get an amendment passed when we're talking about, the data center amendment?

We're talking about tax abolition.

In each of those cases, it's not easy to do.

Yeah.

That came up in my conversation with Cirino when we were talking about the announcement from the property tax folks who say that they won't have enough signatures, probably, to get to the ballot this year, and they're going to have to make a decision.

And he said that he does think it's too easy to get onto the ballot to put a constitutional amendment before voters.

Now, there are a lot of groups that have tried to do this who will say that?

No, no, no, Ohio has the hurdles that you have to pass are pretty big.

I mean, you have to get signatures from 44 of 88 counties, and you have to get 10% of the vote from the previous time we voted for governor, which right now is 413,487 valid signatures.

You got to gather like close to 700,000 to make sure you get to that number.

And then another thing that he had wanted to do that was part of that whole discussion in August 2023, when voters turn that down, was eliminate the ten days that groups get to gather more signatures if they come up short.

So it really would make it very hard for citizens groups and especially for volunteer groups to try to get to the ballot.

But he says that he feels it's it's too easy to make Ohio's ballot in terms of a constitutional amendment.

Well, we'll see where that one goes for sure.

Cleveland public schools administrators got an earful from teachers, staff and parents angry over the planned layoff of several hundred teachers and other school staff that happened at a meeting this week.

Glenn.

And we've discussed the stressors facing the district.

Many commenters there weren't buying it.

They were saying, if you want building brighter futures, which is the name of what they're doing and why, they would need to lay off teachers and do consolidation, they're saying without these teachers and other staff, nurses, etc., the futures are not going to be brighter.

And we've talked a lot about the situation that this put special needs, families and families with, special needs children and the fact that they're going to have to find different buildings because of this building consolidation.

Yeah.

I mean, you're talking about more than 300 layoffs already announced with the possibility of more than 400, layoffs, you know, another additional 100 layoffs.

So and it's something that we hear a lot about in other school districts when, critics say there's this administrative bloat.

So, one special education teacher said there's six figure executive salaries, recent raises, you know, why can't we have some of that money?

Right?

Why not put that back into the teachers?

Libraries are another concern.

Interestingly enough, the school CEO, Warren Morgan, said the contract with the teachers union stipulates that those, call them career center coordinators, people who help out in those situations, they have to be laid off first.

So you're talking about more than 75 of those, employees who assist in libraries and media centers being laid off, essentially because they had to be they had to be laid off first.

That's according to Warren Morgan in the union contract.

But what that's created is, is apparently 12 librarians, 12 librarians to serve more than 33,000 students in 60 schools.

So there's a concern about this, you know, the enrichment portion of this.

And if you are trying to build a better future, this is what the critics are saying.

How can you lay off all of these people?

And what the district is saying is our enrollment is down massively.

We are too big.

We have too many staff, too much staff, and we need to shed them.

And yes, it's going to be something that hurts, the board president said.

We understand that there's going to be a lot of pain with this.

By the way, noted, the board itself is not paid.

Right.

But but, but the school district is saying, despite what we're hearing from the teachers, who clearly are not going to be happy about losing jobs and parents who won't be happy about losing certain programs or having things like the International Baccalaureate moved to a different school.

Right?

That it's necessary.

And we're and we're doing it.

It is.

And, you know, the idea is to right size this, you know, because of the enrollment issues that will allow them to concentrate on the students that they do have left and to provide those services, college prep, you know, all of those kinds of things.

But it is a major adjustment.

And especially as I mentioned, with the backdrop of you could have an additional 100 or so layoffs to the ones that have already been announced.

There's a lot of uncertainty.

People still don't know, you know, exactly where they're going.

In terms of the building.

We reported a couple months ago that there was this deadline coming up to to get in your pick, basically for where you wanted to go the next school you wanted to attend.

And that didn't have very good participation at the time.

So there's still a lot going.

Oh, and oh, by the way, there's still school funding formulas from the state that have been under, you know, kind of determined.

And, the estimate is that Cleveland could miss out on a $150 million annually based on that formula, which has not been fully phased in by the legislature.

So a lot of headwinds within the next, you know, five year forecast, which is what schools look at.

They all agreed on the fact the state needs to pony up more money for school districts like Cleveland.

Karen, have they gotten that done yet?

Lots of state money coming to Cleveland.

No, no, no, I this is a weird year because it's an election year.

So there's a lot that, is probably stacking up for lawmakers as they're trying to figure out what they're going to do, for the rest of the year as they're campaigning and raising money, for sure.

All right.

Let's move to the roads here.

Crews are vulnerable.

And this week, several accidents at work sites on highways because the Ohio Department of Transportation to sound the alarm, drivers need to slow down and keep their eyes open.

Glenn, we've discussed how snow plows are being struck in the winter.

I was surprised to see there was something more than 50 this season, incidents where people had hit either the barriers or trucks that were protecting workers.

Sometimes workers that are there just picking up litter, a temporary set up, but sometimes also the construction zones like we see on I-90 that are permanently there.

But, people are paying parking around this stuff and that's dangerous.

Well, yeah, to your point, it seems to be a year round problem, right?

Not just seasonal.

Yeah.

The snow plows are one thing, but according to Matt Bruning, who's the Department of Transportation press secretary, 52 road crews hit so far this year for just this week.

And you know, they have the the flashing lights and a lot of indications of where these crews are.

But you know, my point is well if you don't see them then you're not going to be able to, you know, slow down and move over, which is in state law, you're supposed to slow down and move over for these crews.

And if they're not seeing it, Mike, I mean, you've seen these on the highway.

It's hard to miss if they're not seeing them.

They've got to be looking at their phones right now.

I mean, they didn't say that, but what else?

Or they're just going too fast and can't react in time because, you know, they're kind of just cruising along and their speed is is not proper.

And at the last minute there's no chance to get over.

I suppose in some ways the system is working as designed, because if they're if people are hitting these trucks in these barriers that are designed to protect the crews, you know, then that system is working.

But the point from Odot is, how is this happening so frequently?

What are we doing out on the roadways?

And it's a question I ask every day when I drive.

What are we doing on the roadways out there?

Good questions.

All right, Larry Householder and Matt Borges won't get relief from the US Supreme Court as they serve out their sentences for the H.B.

six corruption scandal.

Actually, it's Householder serving out a sentence.

Borges has already been released after serving a half of his sentence.

The court declined, though, to hear their appeal.

And Karen Householder is the former house speaker Borges is the former GOP party chairman.

What did the Supreme Court do?

I think it's one of those things where they just don't pick it up Right.

Yeah, they just said that they weren't going to take that up.

And so that puts Householder basically in the position of his fight for any sort of new trial or for his conviction to be thrown out is done at the federal level.

And so basically, what he has ahead of him potentially, is a presidential pardon.

And I talked to one of his lawyers this week, Scott Pullins who said, that's the speaker needs to decide that.

But that's been something that's been talked about for a while.

I also asked Pullins, would Householder have the financial resources to go forward with a presidential pardon?

He said he didn't think so.

We've seen some pardons go forward where there have been a lot of really well-off people who have gotten pardons as this as they've moved through the system.

And, Pullins says that's not, the speaker's case, and he has a 20 year sentence.

I think Borges's was much less.

And he served half of it in his out.

Why is why was Borges pursuing this even though he's already out of.

It's not for for his freedom.

What was his push in trying to have this heard by the Supreme Court?

Well, both Householder and Borges have always maintained that they were innocent and just really pushed that forward throughout the whole trial process and everything that he really he was accused in the whole bribery scheme but said that he was not guilty.

I mean, like I said, they both said that.

And so I feel like for Borges, this is a lot more about saying that he's innocent, proving that he had been getting himself exonerated, essentially.

But what is also had, for instance, for Householder and I should call him the former speaker, not the speaker, but what's ahead for householder, even if he got that presidential pardon, there's still state charges that he faces.

So he is looking down the road of a lot of time in court.

And, you know, he's he's not even halfway through his prison sentence at the federal level.

All right.

We invite your feedback on the Sound of Ideas Reporters Roundtable.

And you can reach us by sending email to s o I at Ideo stream.org.

That's what Tom did.

He says every data center creates maybe 50 long term jobs, but displaces thousands of jobs by enabling AI.

That's Tom's point of view, he said.

The creates job argument is blatantly false.

We also have a note from Lucy who mentioned the great job that the Sound of.

Ideas did last week on bird migration in Ohio.

Talking about that, and she said the news about the new Browns Stadium and really all new development should be mandated to comply with bird safe standards when new buildings are in the planning phase, not after the fact, and that's her point of view.

We'd love again to have your point of view by sending email to SOI@ideastream.org.

Many more stories for us to talk about on the Sound of Ideas Reporters roundtable today.

But first, here's Stephanie Haney to tell us about The Sound of Ideas next week.

Hi, Mike.

Here's what we have lined up on the Sound of Ideas for next week in the Monday through Thursday show.

On Monday, we're looking at the state of local journalism.

This is connected to the documentary Stripped for Parts American Journalism On The Brink.

It's by filmmaker Rick Goldsmith.

We'll be talking with Rick and investigative journalists that are featured in the documentary, which tells the story of a hedge fund that was secretly buying up local newspapers and dismantling them for profit.

Then on Tuesday, we are looking at a health issue.

We're talking about energy drinks and caffeine and overconsumption and the health risks associated with that.

We'll talk to a nutrition professor and then also a medical provider.

Tuesday is also a primary election day here in Ohio.

So on Wednesday we'll recap that for you and let you know about those statewide races, how those things panned out, who will be on your ballot in November.

We'll also look at issues across Northeast Ohio that were on the ballot.

And on Thursday, we turn to U.S.

and European relations, will have the president of the German Marshall Fund on the show.

This is a nonpartisan policy group that is committed to the idea that U.S.

and Europe are stronger together.

That's what we have planned for right now.

Subject to change if there is breaking news back to you in the studio.

Great.

Thank you.

Stephanie.

You are back with the Sound of Ideas Reporters Roundtable from Ideastream Publi I'm Executive Editor Mike McIntire, along with Glenn Forbes of Ideastream and Michelle Jarboe of News5 and Ideastream's Statehouse News Bureau chief Karen Kasler.

You think you know the news of the week better than we do and better than they do?

Well, one way to find out is to take the Ideastream News Quiz.

It just popped into my inb just before the show.

You can find it along the right rail on the Idea stream.org homepage, and sign up to have it delivered to your inbox every Friday.

About half of the tobacco retailers in the city of Cleveland have not acquired an operating permit, as mandated by a law passed last year.

Michelle, I didn't realize it was optional.

It is not optional like clearly.

So we're looking at, halfway through the year.

And they have not yet, complied.

I know David Margolius, the health, director here in Cleveland, has talked to folks about that.

He says, they need to get on board.

Yeah.

And the reason for this is that the number of smoke shops in the city has increased dramatically.

I think it nearly doubled between 2022 and 2025.

And the law was designed to kind of put that in check and encourage more declines in the smoking rate, which is still one of the highest in the country.

So having them register helps them to know where they are, and there can be some policy around how many there should be, etc.. Right?

Yeah, they're they're the legislation that council approved also included some limits in terms of the distribution of smoke shops.

So, you know, you can't open one really close to another existing one.

There were some restrictions around advertising, particularly on the exterior windows of the businesses.

And then there are requirements for inspections at some of these shops.

Okay.

They also, in the council package, had components to address underage smoking as well to people that aren't legally smoking.

But will they be able to get products at these places?

What did the legislation say?

Well, that's where these inspections come in.

Where, there will be secret shoppers who can go into these businesses a couple times a year.

And see whether they're selling to customers who are under the age of 21.

And if that happens, then there are repercussions for it.

And, Glenn, I know that they they had billboards.

They actually went and visited, these smoke shops to say, hey, here are the new rules.

We need you to get on board.

And yet we see half have not complied.

Does it sound like there needs to be more visits, potentially more visits?

You know, the penalty starts with a $500 fine than a $750 fine a week.

Suspension and then license removal if necessary.

But yeah, there's a consistency with this 50% mark.

50% don't have a license.

And then apparently with these secret shoppers that Michelle talked about, 50% of the 92 retailers that they tested sold to those underage buyers.

So it seems pretty consistent that about half the smoke shops in Cleveland are not complying with the various, you know, rules and regulations that they have in the city.

All right.

Cuyahoga County Council voted this week to borrow close to $900 million to begin construction of a new jail campus in Garfield Heights.

The site will include a new 900,000 square foot jail facility and the headquarters for the county sheriff's office.

All kinds of other developments there related to criminal justice in northeast Ohio.

It was a procedural step this week.

Glenn.

The official vote won't happen till next month, but this is in the midst of all kinds of turmoil regarding the jail.

Turmoil is a good word.

Yeah.

County prosecutor Mike O'Malley, previously, about a month ago, said, hey, you have not formed a separate committee that's needed to approve this money.

And not only did he send the letter and say, you need to, form this committee, but he also asked the state auditor to investigate whether the tens of millions of dollars or so that have already been spent was legally spent because it wasn't approved by this committee.

So now they have put a committee together and they did approve it, and they did approve it.

But they still have, you know, Sheriff Harold Pretel, Cuyahoga County sheriff, he abstained from voting because of the investigation.

He's like, listen, I'd feel more comfortable if these issues were resolved before I voted.

Yes.

Same thing happened on county council, with Patrick Kelly, who voted no on this, and even the county attorney told council, like, I can't guarantee that the auditor won't bring legal action if we vote to move forward.

Obviously, enough council members were comfortable with that, that they did vote to move forward.

But there's this this kind of, you know, backdrop of we've got these unresolved issues.

There could be a state investigation.

There was a committee actually, previously, but, County Executive Chris Ronayne dissolved that committee when he came into office in 2023.

And then about a year later, they approved the Garfield Heights site.

And now we have this new committee that they that they've put together and more intrigue.

You mentioned the sheriff, the sheriff just found out that he needs to approve this, because if you move the sheriff's headquarters out of the county seat, apparently he get some approval.

He hasn't yet given that and he's in the midst of a fight with the county executive over the funding for his department.

Who controls the budget?

The amount of overtime there's actually.

He's filed a lawsuit, right.

So all of this literally is the tangled web that, we've heard about.

It is and it's interesting, you know, with the new county, charter, I guess it's not that new anymore.

But, when we went that day to.

And I've been covering news in this town.

Not as long as you, Mike.

But anyway, yeah, the the county charter, and the new county council system moving away from the three commissioners that Cuyahoga County does not have an elected sheriff.

It goes under the purview of of the county executive.

But the question is, how much purview does the county executive have?

So we're talking about over time is always an issue.

The county executive saying criticizing them, basically saying, you know, a lot of this overtime was was rubber stamped.

There wasn't any real approval process.

You've got people making over $300,000 a year because of overtime, right?

He the executive maintains that, the sheriff still has control over the law enforcement side of this.

But I think the sheriff is saying, look, if I can't really control who I hire or some of these other things, do I do I really have control over law enforcement?

So there is a back and forth.

It is about power.

Essentially who controls what?

You know, the executive says we control the back office stuff.

The fiscal and the air policies.

And Sheriff Harold Pretel is saying, I can't do my job if I can't, if I'm not allowed to do my job, essentially, I can go on.

I remember when we were both at the press conference when, the public transit went from, the streetcar to, these motorized vehicles that they had.

That was crazy.

You got a good 20 years on.

I don't want to hear it.

Gas prices in Ohio are surging.

Prices kept spiking this week, and we may not be done.

Experts predict Ohio and other states in the Great Lakes could see prices above $5 per gallon.

I saw a lot of $4.99 in Northeast Ohio.

We're almost there.

So let's talk about the price surge.

We're not, international experts, but we've been hearing it on NPR.

Glenn, it's, it's what's going on in, in Iran.

It's, what's going on in the Strait of Hormuz?

All of that is is coming to roost.

Yeah.

And and you also hear about a lot of refinery issues, in the region.

That's from Patrick Tahan, who's with, GasBuddy.

A long recognized expert in this topic.

But yeah.

Boy, driving around yesterday, I saw 4 or 9.

It's like what I thought we were at, you know, three, three.

I just got some gas at 339, and now we're at 4.99 and a lot of places.

So, certainly some sticker shock there.

But don't worry.

President Trump says it'll drop like a rock once the, war in Iran is over.

Right.

And when will that be over?

Is a really good question.

Yes.

But yeah, we just wanted to point that out.

And people are, people are definitely sending us emails about this, and we're looking at it and the impact this is going to have just on consumers in general and people's pocketbook.

And we're heading into summer driving season when demand tends to be a little higher.

So will it be now or will consumers adjust?

I guess we'll just have to wait and see.

And not just driving season, but flying season.

The price of jet fuel has now doubled.

So let's see what those airline tickets are going to cost for you to make your escape.

Rental cars and all that good stuff.

All right.

Akron City Council appointed Mark Greer, former director of the nonprofit that organized the city's bicentennial, to fill a vacancy created by the departure of longtime council member Jeff Fusco.

Greer, as was as surprised as anyone.

I love this story, Glenn, because, Anna Huntsman recorded it.

Greer sitting at home listening to the proceedings.

And the council had gone through a couple of votes, and then suddenly his name came up because they had to have, I think, eight council or seven council members had to agree and they couldn't get to that point.

And suddenly somebody threw his name in the hat.

He said, oh, he lived downtown.

He said, maybe I'd better get there.

And sure enough, they got eight votes.

And Mark Greer is now a councilman.

Yeah, he gets, 8 to 4 to elect Greer.

That George Johnson was a consideration, longtime city employee and and labor union organizer Tara Moseley Weems was in there as well.

But former council member, former council member.

But Greer ended up being the guy.

He was sworn in immediately.

And he's ready to go.

And, you know, I love this quote, too.

It's an honorable thing to be able to stand in this hall in this hallowed horseshoe.

So, Columbus doesn't have the only hallowed horseshoe.

Hallowed horseshoe?

I like hallowed horseshoe, it's.

Columbus doesn't have the only one.

Akron has one, too, I suppose.

Good luck to Mark Greer.

I know he's gonna have to run, I think, next year for that position.

It's, it's a short term appointment, but, I just love that he was surprised by it.

It sounds like he's, ready to go.

Ready to go?

All right.

The Ohio primary will conclude on Tuesday, when polls open and voters decide the party nominees for major races, including governor.

The other statewide executive offices and U.S.

Senate.

A number of districts also will put issues before voters and Karen.

Those hoping to vote early can still get to the polls.

Is it this weekend?

Right.

This is the end of it.

Yes, there's still early voting.

Ohio still has early voting.

We've heard a lot of discussions about, cutting back early voting or ending early voting.

But Ohio still has early voting.

And, last weekend, this weekend.

But the important thing to remember is if you requested an absentee ballot and you have it, it has to be returned by to the Board of Elections by 7:30 on Election day.

There used to be this four day grace period where you mailed it, and if it didn't get there in time, there would be a couple of days that you would get kind of, extra and the ballot would still be counted.

That's not the case anymore.

So make sure if you have a ballot, you got one.

You didn't send it back.

You really, at this point need to be dropping it off in person.

Right.

And we've got a lot you've done a lot of great coverage on the primaries statewide.

And there are local races as well.

Do we expect any surprises?

Is there anything that's lurking out there do you think we might be surprised by on election night?

I mean, we've got contested races for the Republicans, for governor, secretary of state and treasurer.

On the Democratic side, attorney general, Secretary of state, Supreme Court.

I'm sorry.

Let's flip that.

On the Republican side, we have governor, secretary of state, treasurer and Supreme Court.

On the Democratic side, we have attorney general, secretary of state, and technically U.S.

Senate.

So, you know, I think a lot of these are really pretty well decided, but certainly the governor's race for instance, is one to watch because there were two opponents that we're facing, the lake.

Ramaswamy, who's been the frontrunner all along, one of them right now.

There's still a dispute over whether she's on the ballot or not.

She has filed in, the Ohio Supreme Court saying that she her name is Heather Hill, should get the right to remove her running mate and replace him on the ballot.

But there's also Casey Putsch, who's been running a campaign largely, about data centers and really being very critical of Vivek Ramaswamy heritage and his faith.

And so that's a race that at least could be interesting to see what happens.

But I expect pretty low turnout potentially here on elections right around the corner.

I don't know if you can print a new ballot at this point.

Could you.

Yeah, that's the question.

I mean, I don't think we've had this situation where a candidate, her running mate quit, her running mate filed paperwork saying he is withdrawing and so she wanted to replace him.

But, you know, these are things that are decided, I mean, the filing deadlines in February.

So these are things that were decided a while ago.

And so I expect that she'll probably get the ruling that she can't replace her running mate, and the votes for her will not count.

It might not be a good sign if you're running mate quits just before the election.

Oh, that.

That whole thing has gotten really ugly.

I mean, the two of them back and forth on social media, lob and all sorts of insults at each other, it's it's quite a thing.

I will not be quoting her former running mate.

Let's just say, okay, fair and I'm not be quoting and you won't be doing that on election night.

Glenn, I know you and, and other editors here gave a presentation at our staff meeting about how we're going to cover primary night.

So what's the plan for Idea Stream?

A lot of congressional races, believe it or not.

And to Karen's point, technically, there are challenges like Cleveland.

Congresswoman, Congressmember Shontel Brown is getting a challenge.

But we you know, she's like heavy.

She's the heavy favorite.

She's also the heavy favorite against two Republicans who are facing off in the primary.

Same thing with Dave Joyce, in Geauga County, he's got a primary challenge, but again, expected to win.

So, yeah.

We're we're splitting up the congressional races, between, you know, Cleveland area, Akron area.

There's a a a a primary contest to face Emilia Sykes in the general election in the Akron area.

So we've got those two.

But we're also looking at, interesting judges race here.

The lone, judicial primary, with, again, some indications that the prosecutor's office wants a particular judge out.

That's some reporting by Matt Richmond.

You can find on Ideastream.

So we'll be following that.

And of course, Conor Morris, our education reporter, is going to be extremely busy with a lot of, you know, levies and things like that.

But idea stream.org will be your place to go.

On, after the polls close at 7:30 on Tuesday.

Plenty of stuff there.

Check our social media channels and, Instagram and all that good stuff.

So we're not going live on the air, but we are, on our website, idea stream.org will be updating that continuously and follow us on Instagram as well.

We'll have lots of information there on election night and even a bigger plan for the general election.

And we'll give you more about that.

Karen will be involved in too in that too, and we'll tell you more about that a little bit later as time goes on.

And now, a sad note.

Matt Cox, founder and president of Capitol Partners, a lobbying and consulting firm based in Cleveland, died this week after a long health battle.

Matt was a conservative, a Republican, who joined other pundits across the political spectrum to provide thoughtful analysis on the Sound of Ideas after elections and candidate debates.

He was a throwback, someone whose opinions weren't dictated by a party or a person, and who could disagree without being discourteous.

He was a graduate of John Carroll University and Cleveland State University's College of Law.

I formed a casual friendship with Matt after he'd been on some shows that I hosted.

It was a funny sight when we were together, me being barely above five feet tall, he was somewhere closer to seven feet.

I was impressed, mostly, with Matt's dedication to his family and his fierce advocacy for his developmentally disabled son.

As an extension, all people with disabilities.

Matt made a difference.

All right, bad news, utility consumers.

American Electric Power will not be refunding your more than $74 million.

Following a unanimous ruling in the company's favor from the Ohio Supreme Court.

And, Karen, let's walk through the case a little bit.

The justices sided with the state utility regulators and American Electric power.

How did they come to a decision and how did they get into this mess in the first place?

Well, let's talk a little bit about that.

AEP is part of the Ohio Valley Electric Corporation, which is this group of utilities that owned these two coal fired power plants, one in southern Ohio and one in Indiana.

If you're a House Bill six fan, that might sound familiar to you, because subsidies for those two coal fired power plants were part of that nuclear power plant bailout the passed in 2019.

But the subsidies actually go back to 2016.

And consumer advocates, including the Ohio Consumers Council, which is the state's consumer watchdog, essentially had long said that those power plants were inefficient, that they cost too much money, they lost too much money.

And so they filed this lawsuit to try to get back subsidies, $74.5 million in subsidies that ratepayers paid to the operation of those plants in 2018 and 2019, through a rider, which is a charge that you get on your utility bill.

That rider was approved by state regulators at the Public Utilities Commission.

So basically, what happened in the Supreme Court here is that the justices unanimously ruled in favor of state regulators and AEP, saying there's no evidence that while these plants did lose money, there's no evidence that they were being operated in a way that was really completely against consumers best interests.

So it's a little complicated.

But it was a unanimous decision.

So the consumers paid the money.

The extra charge was put on.

They paid that money.

It's not coming back.

So the whole point was it was a it was a fair charge.

Right.

And that was part of the argument that was made here.

There was a side argument that came about where apparently an independent auditor had been hired.

At one point in a draft of that audit, there was a line in there that said that operating these plants was not in consumer's best interest.

And the OC, the Ohio Consumers Council, found that out through a public records request.

Seeing that draft document, that because that line didn't make it into the final document and they tried to claim that state regulators had really put pressure on the auditor to take that line out.

But the justice said they didn't see any evidence of that.

All right, Karen, I know you've got to run because you've got work to do this morning.

So you're not going to stay for the last ten minutes or so.

We'll say goodbye to you now.

And thanks so much for your expertise.

Happy Friday.

Go, Guardians.

Regards.

All of that.

All of that is true.

Thank you so much.

Piece of, Canton's historic past has been renovated and open to the public.

Canton Parks and Recreation opened the Timken Gate House at Stadium Park on Thursday.

And Glenn, the Timken name resonates in Canton of course.

This isn't the house, although I live in that thing.

That's a gatehouse, but it looks pretty cool to me.

But that was literally just the entrance to the Timken estate, right?

That was the eastern entrance, you know, part of the compound.

But now, you know, according to the, director of Canton Parks and Recreation, you know, now, this really it does, you know, serve the parks.

They're going to open up.

They're going to use it.

The public can start renting this space.

Community events, private events, $600,000 renovation, new outdoor patio.

For some of those small gatherings and events, modernized interior, new kitchenette, warming kitchen, added new restrooms, all that thing.

I told you I could live there for sure.

Yeah.

Of course.

But what a neat thing.

I know Anna Huntsman was there talking about the history in that park and that particular place.

But when you think about those little pieces and we talk about the the clock tower for Firestone, the Firestone plant, in, in Akron as well.

Goodyear.

Firestone, am I right?

Firestone.

Okay.

Thanks.

Something got confused in my head.

But those kind of things that a community that can point to something in the community.

And it seems like a really cool deal that this one has been restored.

Yeah.

I love the idea.

Just.

And it happens, you know, a lot in the region, which is great.

But this idea of preserving the integrity of these old structures, but also kind of modernizing it a little bit, making it more for public use and things of that nature.

And of course, that's things that, you know, I mentioned the parks director, those are things that they love to because, you know, they get that old kind of old school feel modern amenities, rent it out, make it open to the public.

It's it's a good situation, right.

Let me share some feedback on some of our earlier items that we had today.

I'm be reading here, from my phone, because that's where the emails come in.

Richard talks about the ODOT issues, and he says, while I sympathize with ODOT, it's partly ODOT fault.

The signs they put up for construction are not accurate on I-77.

They claim the left hand lane is closed.

The fact was one left hand lane is closed, but a right hand lane was also closed.

Only the middle lane was operating.

So it was confusing for him that becomes an issue and Glen agrees.

He says concerning crashes and construction zones, there are plenty of times I've seen people holding the stop signs with their back toward traffic while looking at their phones.

They wouldn't even know if a dangerous situation was coming at them.

In some of these same situations, the placement of cones and signage is poorly thought out.

So he's talking about, let's make sure that we're doing it right on ODOT side.

Clearly no excuse for anyone, getting into an accident, but he's saying these are the kinds of things that make it easier and invite accidents as well.

We appreciate your feedback.

SOI@stream.org even after the show.

We'd love to hear what you have to say.

And this is I saw this video, Glenn.

It was kind of like taking candy from a baby.

It was actually a baseball from an 11 year old girl.

The guy who did it got doxxed and blasted on social media.

I looked at the video, he tries to catch the ball.

It's a home run from the Guardians Daniel Schneemann.

It hits off his hand.

So big error.

Then he goes immediately to grab it.

Just as this little girl was also going to.

He didn't grab it out of her hand or anything, but he got there and snatched it and said, I got a ball.

And she cried.

Yeah, this became, a big internet deal.

And in fact, I then saw him go on channel eight to with as much contrition as a person can have.

Yeah, well, as my dad would say, E - fan.

E-fan.

Exactly.

E-Fan.

Yeah.

You know, and we've seen this before too.

We saw this with, with the Philadelphia fan, a couple months ago where a woman goes and kind of yells at a guy to give her the ball back, and it a couple things going on here.

First of all, if you catch a foul ball or a home run ball, give it to a kid, give it to a kid.

That's the first thing you should look for.

Look for giving it to a kid.

Secondly, if you see that you are now battling with an 11 year old girl and he says he didn't see it, he just saw the glove.

But when you realize, oh my gosh, I just took this from an 11 year old girl, you should probably give it back.

Which he did three innings later.

Several innings and several innings later, the, Guardians were playing the Rays.

The Rays broadcast got involved.

They got her a ball.

They got her some stuff, which was cool at the same time, he did the right thing.

Do we really need to pile on this guy so much?

I mean, it's just it's a societal thing that's happening, right?

Somebody makes a mistake.

Maybe it's a bad mistake.

And now we're like, you said, we're going to doxx the guy.

We're going to bury him.

All this stuff.

So a lot of mistakes.

What I've heard is a lot of people sort of, okay, we forgive and they're deleting some of those things.

And in fact, the little girl herself did a video that was on channel eight saying, hey, can we just forgive this?

The little girl, she was shook.

She was she was shook at the time, but the family was there.

It's like it's over with now.

Okay, but give her the ball.

But the advice.

Yeah.

The advice that Glenn just had.

Is it?

If you ever catch a ball at a baseball game, find a kid and give it to them.

Right.

Look for a kid.

Fair enough.

Hey, that is a wrap.

I want to say thanks to you, Glenn.

Appreciate you for being here.

And of course, you as well, Michelle, appreciate your insights today.

Thanks for joining me.

All right.

And to get the last word on today's topics, you can send an email to SOI @ideastream.org.

You can find us on Instagram at The Sound of Ideas and Monday on The Sound of Ideas, we'll preview a documentary screening in Oberlin that examines the current journalism landscape and some of the reasons so many local newspapers are going dark.

If you missed any part of today's show we'll air rebroadcast tonight at nine on 89.7 KSU and you can catch the television version of this show tonight at five on PBS, WVIZ PBS.

You can also catch us on YouTube or the podcast provider of your choice.

And we note the passing this week of country music great and Akron native David Allan Coe, whom I just called by his name.

He was 86.

He wrote Take This Job and Shove It, the 1977 Johnny Paycheck hit and he scored his own recording.

He scored his own hit with recording of this song, You Never Even Called Me By My Name.

And I hang around as long as you will let me.

I'm Mike McIntyre.

Thanks so much for watching and stay safe.

And I never minded standing in the rain.