The Browns are leaving downtown Cleveland for Brook Park.

The U.S. Department of Justice will monitor voting in Portage County after the sheriff's controversial social media post.

And the mayor of Akron is backing his embattled police chief.

Ideas is next.

Hello and welcome to Ideas.

I'm Mike McIntyre.

Thank you for joining us.

Bye bye, Browns.

A frustrated Cleveland mayor, Justin Bibb announced Thursday that negotiations with the Browns failed to convince the team to stay downtown.

Now they're only moving to suburban Brook Park and at Dome Stadium complex.

But how much money will the team seek from the public and who will provide it after complaints of voter intimidation?

The Department of Justice has dispatched monitors to oversee early in-person and Election Day voting in Portage County, despite calls for the ouster of Akron Police Chief Brian Harding.

Mayor Seamus Malik, who appointed Harding in May, says he's standing by his chief.

And state officials say Ohio's new distracted driving law is making the road safer.

Joining me for the roundtable, ideastream supervising producer of newscasts, Glenn Forbes and Akron Canton reporter Anna Huntsman in Columbus and the Karen Kasler wing of the statehouse.

Our statehouse news bureau chief, Karen Kasler.

Let's get ready to roundtable the Cleveland Browns plan to leave Cleveland for the second time in nearly 30 years, this time to suburban Brook Park and a new domed stadium complex.

A clearly frustrated Cleveland mayor, Justin Bibb, called it profoundly disheartening.

The Browns issued a statement saying that their stadium planning stretched back to 2017.

They called the last two years of talks with the city collaborative and productive.

But ultimately, owners Jimmy and Dee Haslam determined, quote, The transformational economic opportunities created by a dome far outweigh what a renovated stadium could produce with around ten events per year.

Where will the public portion of funding come from?

How big will the tab be?

The Browns say the complex would include $2 billion in private investment, the rest coming from the public.

Cleveland council member Brian Casey said neither the state nor the county should put in a dollar.

GLENN One of the questions that came up yesterday during the discussion from the mayor, who was clearly frustrated and angry, was we didn't even know they wanted a dome stadium.

We had a negotiation.

The first thing they told us was a dome would be too expensive.

Let's talk about an open air stadium renovation or new.

And the Browns, that city then said, okay, we didn't have time to come up with a site.

They just basically said, hey, you're being outweighed by Brook Park because it's a dome.

They even at the last minute said, okay, what about Burke Lakefront Airport?

It seems like that's the frustration we're hearing from the Browns is they don't feel like it was sort of a level negotiating table.

Yeah, I mean, I think that's part of it.

But I also think this is what the Haslam's have kind of wanted all along.

That's just speculation analysis, call it whatever you will.

That part about Burke is interesting.

And in the Haslam statement yesterday they said as we explored the Burke site, there were still these, you know, geotechnical challenges and hurdles.

And one good point that they made was we don't know when the airport is even going to close, so when can we start that renovation?

I think the bottom line here, Mike, is when you're on the lakefront, you're somewhat landlocked, certainly.

And even though that that Burke space is a big one, I guess, you know, as I mentioned, there were some challenges with that.

This is about creating the football village, the football center of northeast Ohio.

We're talking, you know, hotels, restaurants, retail apartments, you know, all that.

Team Hall of Fame owned by.

Yeah, exactly.

So that's where I'm going, right?

You know, the Haslam's, there's going to be a lot more possible revenue streams in Brook Park.

It seems like there would be a lot more revenue streams in Brook Park than there could be downtown because of some of those land issues that I'm talking about.

And they get to control basically all of it.

Yeah, but that leads to this question that, yeah, you want 2 billion bucks from the public, so you're going to have a better moneymaking machine in Brooklyn Park.

I hear Brian Casey saying absolutely not.

You know, I think county executive go back to what Cuyahoga County Executive Chris Ronayne said, You know, a couple months ago, you're asking for double the public money.

And he said many times that dog won't hunt from Cuyahoga County.

Basically, the county has other obligations.

We had more news on the jail, the new county jail today, which doesn't seem to be going particularly well.

There's a lot of other projects that the county says they have to pay for.

They don't want double the public cost for Brook Park as opposed to downtown.

So that's another reason, you know, they were unified.

The elected officials are unified in their approach that we want the Browns to stay in downtown Cleveland.

But I think it's even more interesting what the county is saying.

Basically, we have all these other projects we can't pay double in public money of what you want.

They also would be banking on huge amounts of public subsidy from the state, which is never given the kind of numbers we're talking about here, Ana.

And so there really still is a lot of question.

That's why Mayor Bibb did say we'll welcome you back with open arms if you find out you can't this dog doesn't hunt.

So we'll figure that out.

Right.

It's interesting to hear the Haslam's talk about this moneymaker for for them in the Brook Park area and the team, obviously.

And it could help the economy across northeast Ohio, you know, theoretically, but it's already the Browns are already a moneymaker for downtown Cleveland, which is what Mayor Justin Bibb was talking about yesterday when he said he was deeply disappointed.

This is going to impact the businesses that are around the Browns Stadium and in across downtown small businesses, restaurants, bars.

I mean, it's it's going to the convention facilities, the hotel venues, because this is going to be an indoor place.

Right.

So some you would think they're going to have they don't want just an event.

So there's concerts and other things that might have been downtown feeding into this infrastructure that's already been invested.

Exactly.

That's the argument that they're making.

A couple more things, Mayor Bibbs.

Now, this is the city's study.

$30 million annually in losses if the Browns leave the downtown area.

Also, I just want to mention this could not be a worse time for the Browns PR wise.

The team is rolling this year.

The team is one in five.

They have a controversial quarterback that they sunk $230 million guaranteed into six draft picks, including three first rounders.

And when you look on the field objectively, it kind of stinks.

Okay.

But they just picked up a third round draft pick.

That was easy.

They traded a they traded trying their best player.

Yeah, one of their best players.

I mean, it's the only asset.

They're the only tradable asset.

They had a guy who wasn't going to be here next year.

So if you look at that in that sense, football, it kind of makes sense.

The Browns have very coming off of a playoff season.

Last year, the Browns have very little goodwill right now because of what a disaster this season has become and how they have basically thrown out what was a successful Kevin Stefanski offense to try to tailor to a quarterback who many fans say and objectively we can say isn't playing very well.

And I'm putting it mildly.

I've heard they're moving to Brook Park.

Why don't you just go ahead and move to Saint Louis?

There's so much frustration, Mike, and that's why I'll just leave it there.

We have Steve in Lakewood joining us on line two.

Hey, Steve, welcome.

Hey, how you guys doing today?

Good, good.

What's on your mind?

A couple of reasons.

Shame on Brook Park and shame on the owners of the Browns.

I think it's a horrible decision.

Here's why.

One climate change.

You're going to take all this carbon emissions to build this new stadium where you've got a perfectly fine stadium where it's at.

Secondly, public transportation option.

All the public transportation goes downtown, the rapids, the busses, people to get to the game who can't afford and maybe don't have cars.

And the other thing is those are the main two things.

But yeah, I think I think it's really, really greedy.

Grab by the owners of the Browns.

Steve, thanks for weighing in.

I do know that the red line Rapid Transit does go directly to the airport, which is adjacent to this site.

You would think that there would be some logistics that are worked out that would be able you're not going to be crossing over the Berea Freeway in order to get there.

That is an interesting point, though, not just about public transportation.

Something I was thinking about is, you know, Cleveland is the Cleveland Browns.

Any Cleveland sports team, you're going to have fans from across the region driving to the games.

So Cleveland is kind of a centralized location, you would think, for that.

So I'm just wondering, is this going to I mean, are people just going to be like, I don't want to drive, you know, maybe X amount further?

I don't know.

It's probably not.

Maybe it'll be easier.

Who knows for some people to be easier.

I know that was just one.

As a I'm a Canton native here, which so I wanted to butt in, by the way, because there is already a football capital of Ohio.

I can't recall.

But as a Canton native, I'm thinking like, what is the difference between driving up to you know, downtown versus Brook Park?

Well, you mentioned Canton.

The Hall of Fame Village is having financial problems.

So, yeah.

So does this model really work?

And I'm not saying that it would be the same, but I'm wondering if if the model works.

And one thing we've heard from experts on on this show previously is, yes, you can draw a few more major events to a dome complex like this.

But really, how many I mean, other than Taylor Swift and you know, I know Billy Joel and Rod Stewart were here, how many other acts can you book for?

You know, 50, 70,000 seats?

It's not that many events.

So the concern is, yes, we want to have more than ten events per year.

But how many events can you really house in a massive complex?

Not so unusual, though, to have a team playing outside of it's down?

No, not any teams.

Kansas City, both of their teams play outside of downtown.

So another another point to consider for the move in terms of that, it won't be so disruptive.

The other question then becomes, is this a good thing because of the fact that the lakefront is now a wide open piece of property that could be developed and the city has already passed a financing mechanism where they can build along the shores of the banks of the river and the shore of Lake Erie.

There's discussion and the mayor and I said, we're going full steam ahead on our on our lakefront renovation plan.

Yeah.

When they were considering the plans, they kind of had two different versions.

It was, you know, if the Browns stay, we that's great.

If not, we are we already have plans for the 50 acres.

They haven't really gone into all of that there but yeah so they were going forward with the lakefront development you know regardless of the decision David sends an email says Kudos to Mayor Bibb for standing up to Browns management.

Even if ten games are played at the Browns Stadium, that represents less than 3% of the days in a year.

Another reason I think, that providing significant financial assistance to a sports team provides questionable benefit.

And now Todd online one Todd from Ward one you've heard him many times on the show is joining us with his thoughts.

Todd I do not believe that the Browns are going to need public money if they're requesting not.

It is clear where they're going and what they're going to do.

I believe there's going to be enough interest from the private investors around the country to help pad this a little bit better.

And this is going to be a success providing that they put two hotels on their site where they're going to have at least 200 rooms and they spend some energy putting other things around it, such as minor things like a grocery store, a bank, and make sure that the people can go straight from the airport to the Brook Park Rapid Station and not have to really go outside in bad weather to get to the hotels and don't appreciate your input.

And I'll tell you that there's a lot of people that say if they can build it with private finance, then go, Yeah, yeah.

A question here has become and it was even in the statement yesterday, Glenn, where they said we're going to be putting $2 billion worth of personal worth of private money into this.

And you said, okay, well, it's a $2 billion project, great needs.

And the rest will be covered by the public.

I want to know what the rest is.

We're now hearing maybe 4 billion.

Yeah.

And I think when you estimate 3.4 billion for the entire complex, that probably means 4 billion in certainly in a couple of years.

Yeah.

If this was all going to be money that the Haslam's got from Warren Buffett, who purchased pilot flying J whose, you know, Haslam's father built that company, If Haslam was taking the money from Warren Buffett and was going to finance this all himself, it would be a win win.

We'd get a new complex, we'd get a new development, a new, you know, football village, whatever, and the city could develop the lakefront.

And I think everybody posturing aside, I think everybody would be happy with that solution.

I think the problem now is, are you asking for 2 billion what seems like anywhere between 1.2 billion and $2 billion in public financing, 2.4 at least for just the dome itself?

Let's bring Karen into that conversation.

And a lot of money would then have to come from the state.

I don't think it's given anywhere near $600 million, which is one of the numbers have been bandied about for any stadium project, I think, in Cincinnati, what was it, 30 or 30 to 60 million?

Is the state going to pony up a ton of money for a complex in Brook Park?

When I talked to State Senator Matt Dolan, who's of course a part owner of Guardians about this earlier this year, he said that what he's hearing is more like a a bond issue kind of thing, where the state would put its full faith and credit on the line there to finance bonds, about $600 million, where it wouldn't be just a check written by the state.

But that would be the way that they're thinking about going.

But still, you know, there's the possibility that state lawmakers would be asked.

And I think it's interesting that as this announcement was coming, the state lawmakers who were in that area said they had not heard about this.

They had not heard that this move to Brook Park announcement was imminent.

And so I'm interested to see how much money, extra money beyond what the Haslam's are already planning on putting into it.

They're going to be requesting from the state and from the region as well.

And the notice that they put out the statement said we have funding mechanisms that aren't going to be tied into taxpayer money.

So I don't understand exactly what that is and it would be great to get clarity on that.

But what what specifically are they talking about?

And that's the backing of bonds, but that's still putting the public at risk.

Oh, absolutely, yes.

Because if it doesn't pay off, then the state's on the hook for paying, though.

So I think that may be what they're talking about.

But still, it's you know, the financing of this thing is just incredible.

And, you know, the Haslam's, I mean, are worth eight and a half billion dollars.

So there's certainly personal wealth that they are putting on the line and they can put on the line.

But they also own other teams.

They own the crew, they own the Milwaukee Bucks.

You know, there's there's a lot of pieces for the Haslam's to manage here.

And certainly this is going to be a prime project, I guess.

All right.

Let's have Coleen in Cleveland join us now.

Hi, Colleen.

What's on your mind?

Hi.

I'm thinking that the disloyalty that the Haslam's are showing to the Cleveland community is as egregious as the effect that they'd like the Cleveland community and the surrounding community to fund their personal wealth grab.

I it's it's incredible to me that this is being asked of us and that it's actually being entertained as something that we would do when people are suffering and unable to rise to the the the inflation that has hit them.

And now we're going to throw it into more personal entertainment.

I just don't understand it.

Coleen, thank you for sharing your thoughts there.

David sends an email and says not a cent of public money should go to a relocation for the Haslam's.

Let them use their own money.

Great opportunity for Mayor Bibb and city leaders to remake a lakefront that works for all.

Lots of emails that are coming in from from folks.

Hold on tight.

We're in the final weeks before the November 5th election and early voting began October 8th in Ohio.

Secretary of State Frank LaRosa.

His office has unveiled a new data dashboard that shows the number of mail in and early in-person votes, as well as the number of absentee ballots requested.

Ohioans are voting early and in-person at nearly twice the rate of mail in voting.

Wonder why that is?

Karen, is it because we've heard a lot of the questions and attacks about mail in voting, though there hasn't been any proof that they're that it's that it's not kosher.

But we see a lot of people now actually going to the polls early.

And I'm not sure why that is.

I think we don't know yet because we're only a week into this.

So these numbers could change dramatically.

I think it's interesting to note that 1.4 million ballots have been requested so far.

That's more than from 2016 at this point, but less than in 2020.

Now, of course, in 2020, we were in the pandemic and a lot of people were voting absentee.

So it's hard to compare this year's numbers to 2020.

But one of the other things that I think is interesting is, as of right now, most of those ballot ballots that have been requested have been requested by unaffiliated voters, but more Republican affiliated voters have requested ballots than Democrat affiliated voters.

And that's a lot of people seem to think that early voting is something that Democrats take advantage of.

But right now, Republicans are leading that.

Hmm.

Yeah, it's really tricky to make predictions based on that first week, but it is good to have access to that information.

It used to be spreadsheets from the from the secretary of state's office.

It was difficult to dig through.

Now, it's going to be a much more transparent number process.

This this dashboard is really great.

When I talked to Frank Lawrence a couple months ago, he had said that this was in the works but wasn't sure it was going to be ready in time for the election.

And here it is.

And it's just got information that election geeks like me have been looking for because we can finally get a sense of who is actually taking advantage of early voting in close to real time.

The election officials, Glenn, are still, though they're recommending that mail in voting is is absolutely appropriate.

Yeah, And both Frank Roses, as Karen mentioned, and Cuyahoga County Board of Elections spokeswoman like excuse me, Mike West say, yes, we're still encouraging people to vote by mail.

It's safe and secure, it's dependable.

I actually drove by the Board of Elections yesterday on my way out of downtown, and they were pretty busy.

I mean, there's they've got their you know, their parking set up and all that.

And they're trying to avoid kind of that crush as you get closer to Election Day.

I will say this, though.

Earlier this week on All Things Considered, the secretary of state from Kansas was on and he was saying and he was Republican and he was saying he didn't necessarily trust that state's mail in voting, which was interesting.

And he said, you know, if if you were going to mail if you owed me $1,000, I wouldn't want you to mail it.

And he was kind of making some comparisons there.

But I also got the sense that the system in Kansas maybe wasn't as transparent as the one in Ohio where you can track your ballot.

You can see where it is, you know, when you mail it in and all that stuff.

So some of these states might be having some concerns.

But Republican Secretary of State Frank LaRose and local officials in Cuyahoga County really have no such they have not expressed any such concerns.

And the United States Department of Justice will be monitoring early in-person and Election Day voting in Portage County.

Monitors will be on hand to assure that federal voting rights laws are being followed.

And this is all about the county sheriff there, Bruce Koski, correct?

He had a Facebook post a couple of weeks ago.

It's since been deleted.

But he basically said to write down the addresses of people who have Kamala Harris signs in their yard.

And those addresses, that's where illegal immigrants should go.

It was this whole controversy a couple of weeks ago.

And in result of that, many people had been contacting the Ohio secretary of state's office, but now nationally saying, we're concerned about this.

We're scared to put a sign up in our yard, but we also might be scared to vote.

And so, yes, the Department of Justice is going to have election monitors.

So these are lawyers election rights, voting rights excuse me, civil rights lawyers that are going to be around just making sure everything's going okay.

And that sheriff up for reelection, he made those comments, but also being on the ballot.

That's.

Yes.

And the comments were about, you know, write down the addresses of Kamala Harris supporters.

Interesting that that's now elevated to a Department of Justice.

Yeah.

And this has it's not uncommon for this to happen necessarily.

I know in 2022, monitors were actually out here in Cuyahoga County doing that.

That was the only Ohio county where monitors were sent.

Now it's Portage County.

A little bit of a different county.

It's a lot smaller than Cuyahoga County, for sure.

So.

So that's what's going on.

Yeah.

Mike, this has also invited a lot of other attention on Portage County.

There have been other lawsuits filed and things that are completely separate.

There was one yesterday about, you know, possible false arrest, the planned lawsuit there.

Other things about, you know, inmates working on the Zhukovsky campaign and all this stuff.

So, like, I think just goes to show like, you can make kind of a tongue in cheek comment if you're a regular, if it's like your uncle, he can make that kind of tongue in cheek comment like, but if you're the sheriff, you're up for reelection, you're in charge, or you are in charge of providing election security, it's a different ball of wax when you make that post.

And community activist in Akron this week doubled down on their criticism of police Chief Brian Harding, demanding his firing.

Harding was appointed chief in May by Mayor Shamas Malik, who said he still believes Harding is the right man for the job.

The activists with Freedom BLOCK say Chief Harding has shown he will not hold officers accountable.

Why are they saying that?

This is coming from the report from the city's police auditor.

He's also new to the relatively new to the role.

And his first kind of report was over this incident that happened in January where an officer appeared to body slam someone a woman that he was arresting and the officers was investigated because of the use of force and they found it to be objectively reasonable.

But the police auditor said no, this is not objectively reasonable, and had some other comments, too, about the use of force policy and said the officer didn't take the necessary steps to de-escalate the situation.

So that report was sent to the chief and the mayor and the police chief said, I disagree.

This takedown was objectively reasonable and so because of that, the this activist group, Freedom BLOCK, the attorney of the woman who was body slammed, they are calling for him to well, first they were calling for him to resign.

And then that escalated this week to saying that he should be fired.

I also want to note that the woman in question was unanimously acquitted of charges of obstructing official business and resisting arrest.

The mayor is firmly behind him.

He said, I've got the right guy.

Yes, this is basically being misinterpreted.

He said the calls for him to be fired are misplaced.

The mayor has said that he wants to review the use of force policy, and he even said that he's watched the video and doesn't think that's the kind of policing that should be happening in Akron.

But he's saying that he fully that Chief Harding fully has his support.

He believes he's the best person to lead the department.

He says they're not always going to agree with the police on it or they respect his point of view, but they're not always going to agree.

So he's not saying he's not going to be fired, but they are in the coming weeks, going to be taking a closer look at the use of force policy.

And they actually want to invite input from the public on it to Ohio's distracted driving law, which has been enforced for a year now, has resulted in more tickets and safer roads, according to state officials.

It means now that if you hold a cell phone or other electronic device while driving, that's a primary offense, which means you can be pulled over of police.

See that you're on the phone.

Handsfree devices are still okay and you can also use them when you're at a stoplight, those type of things.

But state agencies this week say the law is working.

Karen Well, Sarah Donaldson reported on this.

How is the state measuring the success?

As you might recall, the law took effect and then there was a six month kind of grace period where they were getting the message out and you start to see billboards and pieces and things like that and public service announcement.

Thank you.

You know, and to do that.

And so now they're looking back and saying that accidents in which a driver was distracted are down 12% year over year and they're saying that this is part of what they were trying to do.

Fatal distracted driving also fell, which again, these are things that the state was really hoping to see when it cracked down on distracted driving.

And they've been writing a lot of tickets.

Yeah, they've been writing a lot of tickets.

I think 69 citations per day according to the Ohio State Highway Patrol.

That's a lot of tickets.

Yeah, 25,310 tickets in the past 12 months, a 263% increase over the previous 12 month period.

So, yeah, the grace period was over.

You had a year of it.

Now you know you're going to get nabbed for it.

Don't have a phone up while you're driving.

And I saw somebody, by the way, yesterday dawdling as they get on the highway with a phone in their ear.

And you just you're and you're like, there should be a law against that.

And there is.

And you wish karma would happen to be a police officer right there.

Yeah.

I thought it was hard to make that average driver worse.

But I mean, that's what has happened, right.

Or slower or whatever.

And I don't want to get into it.

Monday on the Sound of Ideas on 89 seven, KSU economic issues are the top concern for voters.

That's what we found in our Neo Voter Voices poll conducted by Baldwin Wallace University in partnership with Signal, Ohio and WKYC TV.

We'll be examining a specific economic issue, inflation.

I'm Mike McIntyre.

Thank you so much for watching.

And stay safe.