the Browns plan to move out of downtown Cleveland and into a new taxpayer subsidized complex in Brook Park dominated news this year.

So did Cleveland's vision for a redeveloped lake and riverfront.

And colleges dealt with serious financial woes all across the region.

Ideas is next.

Hello and welcome to IDEAS.

I'm Mike McIntyre.

Thank you for joining us.

It's a special edition of the roundtable today.

We'll look back at the top local stories of 2020 for next week, the top statehouse stories.

The Cleveland Browns decision to pursue a dome stadium complex in Brook Park and the ongoing battle that has ensued is one of the region's top stories in 2024.

Not so newsworthy has been the team's dismal play.

Cleveland pushed waterfront development this year, creating taxing vehicles to spur development on the river and lakefront.

Akron got a new mayor who picked a new police chief, and they're now facing a familiar issue.

Community unrest after the police shooting death of another young black citizen, This time a 15 year old.

And a spike in local property values got people riled up as they worried about higher taxes.

Joining me to talk about the top stories in northeast Ohio in 2024 are the journalist who covered many of them from Ideastream Public Media supervising producer of newscasts, Glenn Forbes, Akron Canton reporter Anna Huntsman, and education reporter Connor Morris from News five.

Cleveland real Estate and development reporter Michelle Jarboe.

Let's get ready to roundtable.

The Browns made big news in 2024 and it wasn't about their play on the field.

They announced a plan to move out of downtown and into a new complex envisioned for Brook Park, and they want the public to cover $1.2 billion of it.

Michel the Haslam's want this new domed stadium.

It makes a lot of sense from a business perspective.

If you're owning the properties around it and you're doing all of that.

But they also want the public to foot half the bill for the stadium.

And this is a pretty hefty bill.

Renovation on the lakefront would have been a little over $1,000,000,000.

This is more than two.

Yes, the cost of the stadium alone in Brook Park is an estimated $2.4 billion.

And the Haslam's are looking for the public to cover half of that.

So $1.2 billion.

That doesn't include the mixed use development around the stadium, which would be privately financed.

And the Haslam's haven't said a ton about how this financing would work, but in general, what we do know is that they're talking about tapping new tax revenues created by the stadium and the surrounding development.

So things like new admissions, taxes, parking taxes, taxes on host hotel stays, property taxes and having a public entity or multiple entities issue bonds upfront using those anticipated tax revenues to pay the debt service on the bonds.

Over time, as you alluded to, Cuyahoga County, which the Browns have asked to be a big part of that, has said, whoa, whoa, whoa.

County executive Chris Ronayne said, You know, I don't buy the math.

And we think this is too much of an ask with all these other needs.

They said the dog don't hunt.

That's right.

Very memorable.

Right.

So when we talk about that math, the county has a lot of other obligations, are building a jail complex.

They've got multitude of things that they need to spend money on.

And you hear Chris Ronayne saying no.

However, Brook Park is still in Cuyahoga County.

So for Cleveland, it's an issue of losing the team from your jurisdiction.

For the county, you're still retaining this team within the county.

Is there any thought that at some point the county might relent and say yes, because of the Cuyahoga County project will help?

I think it remains to be seen.

Chris Ronayne, the county executive, has been very firm about his position that the Browns should stay downtown and open to the idea of participating in financing some way in some way for a downtown stadium.

Obviously, if it was a renovation project, the asset to the county would be much smaller.

I know when the county executive made that announcement, the council president was up there with him at a podium agreeing about the Browns staying downtown.

But there was at least one other member of county council there in the audience who had an opposing view.

So I think it'll be interesting in 2025 to see what happens and how these conversation pans around, whether or not the county would participate could evolve.

And the city of Cleveland before the announcement by the Browns that they intended to pursue the Brook Park facility.

We had already been talking about this for months and months and months and they had been in negotiations.

But the city was ponying, ponying up a significant amount of money for renovation that won't happen, obviously, with the Brook Park Project.

But what was the city offering?

And before the Browns said, no, we'd rather go another direction?

Well, the city was talking about a package that would be about $460 million toward what was at that time anticipated to be a $1 billion renovation project.

But the city was trying not to pledge any funding streams that would cut into services for residents.

I don't know that it really came down to the money there, though.

I mean, the Browns, clearly the Haslam's are enamored of this vision and Brook Park and what they want is this mixed use entertainment district on a nearly 200 acre site.

You're not going to get that on the downtown lakefront, where the city of Cleveland's lakefront master plan is really focused on public space.

You know, there's a plan downtown for a hotel and apartments and other buildings on the lakefront, but it's like 60% public space that ideally is going to be free to access.

Whereas in Brook Park, we're talking about, you know, more than a thousand apartments, two high end hotels, 12000 to 14000 parking spaces that the Browns would control, along with 500,000 square feet of office and roughly 300,000 square feet of retail.

You're just not going to get that here.

So the question then Glen becomes, is that then a plus for the region because we have this brand new development or is this a real negative for the core of the region, the downtown?

And we've got dueling studies there.

The city of Cleveland introduced a study that said this is going to be a big blow to downtown.

But more recently, the Haslam's released a study that said we're getting tons of money in the region from this.

In fact, it turned out to be $1.2 billion was going to be the return.

I think it was.

Was that annual an annual return of 1.2, which happens also to be what the public contribution would be to the building of the stadium.

Imagine that the math the math worked out.

It's all a coincidence, Mike.

No, there's so much to talk about here and so much to get you.

First of all, the city came out with their report from a Philadelphia consultant that said if the Browns leave the downtown area, it's going to cost that downtown area of $30 million annually.

The report that you're mentioning basically says from from the team says this project is going to be so grand and so wonderful that the spillover effect is going to help downtown anyway because of the adjacency or, you know, the proximity to downtown.

I think Michel's point is is very important in a couple of ways.

This trend toward building a football village and getting everything under one roof, not really, but you know what I mean?

Everything in this sprawling complex that the Haslam's can control and control that revenue.

I think here's the other important point.

The Haslam family does not control pilot flying J anymore.

They sold that to Warren Buffett.

This is their business has some sports group now is their main business.

This is what they're spending their time on.

They have the Columbus crew.

They have a partial ownership of the Milwaukee Bucks, the son in law, J.W.

Johnson, very involved in this.

They want this mega complex not only for the revenue, but also because in my mind, they want to build this kind of empire, Right.

These sports empires.

And Cleveland is kind of their their headquarters to do that.

Here's a question taxpayers might ask then, if that's what you'd like and you want to collect the revenue from it and control it, then pay for it, right?

So it's interesting in talking about this, because you have the mayor of Cleveland, Justin Bibb, and you have the county executive Chris Ronayne saying all the investment is already in downtown.

We have the infrastructure down there.

We don't want to go invest in somewhere else.

And Chris, Ronan's other point is, as Michel mentioned now, if you move to Brook Park, you're asking for double, right?

It's everything is doubled.

At least I would say everything is doubled.

We can't afford that.

We want you downtown and we want to do the 1.2 or the 600 million rather than the 1.2 billion.

So when you're doubling everything and the county, as you mentioned, is saying we have these other obligations and we're going to get to the other sports facilities in a minute because those are a factor, too, along with some of the other obligations.

The county has not to mention the jail, the Justice center.

They're saying we can't do this, we can't contribute.

And then at the state level, if you give 600 million, if you give hundreds of millions of dollars to the Browns, what do you do for the Bengals?

What are you going to do for the Blue Jackets, the Reds?

You know, the guardians of the state's already kicked in a little bit, significantly less for some of the progressive field renovations.

So it will be interesting to see how this how this plays out.

But yeah, if they're going to control the majority of the revenue, I think the opinion is they should foot the majority of the bill for the project and not have the split.

All right.

And final thought on this particular issue is the model law.

This is a law state law that says a team can't move out of a city unless it offers someone else a chance to purchase that team.

There are hurdles you'd have to go through.

Is that going to come into play in any in any way, do you think?

Michel?

Well, there's litigation over it right now, but the experts I've talked to don't think the model law is going to be much of a factor here.

One of the academics I spoke to a couple months ago described it as a toothless tiger.

And if you've read the law there, the language is vague.

It's unclear whether it's really enforceable.

And the litigation that's going on, which was actually initiated by the Browns to try to get clarity on this, is really about the constitutionality of that law.

You know, can you really prevent a team from moving?

They're also questions about, okay, if you're offering an opportunity to buy, who are you offering that and do you have to accept that offer or is is it just a charade?

the Bibb administration, work with Cleveland City Council on a vision to redevelop the lakefront and the riverfront in Cleveland and Council approved.

Many see the waterfront as having untapped economic potential.

And to achieve that potential after years of failure, the city created development tool known as tax increment financing or a TIFF district to cover the shore to core to shore project of infrastructure improvements, to promote game changing development, separate turf was also then created for bedrock to develop the river.

And there's been debate for decades about whether tax incentives, whether abatements or special financing districts like this are worth it.

The debate continues.

Cleveland leaders say the plan will raise huge amounts of money to promote downtown development and eventually to benefit the neighborhoods.

So let's talk about the tiff.

That's a pretty big deal there.

There have been tiffs on individual projects in the past, but now we have a broad region that's covered by this tiff.

What is it?

And how does the city envision this to help change it?

Sure.

So we're talking about two different types of tiffs here.

And I mean, I think the average person probably isn't familiar with pets at all and doesn't need to be because it will make your head hurt.

Yes, but but basically, there there are structures that allow you to finance private development, like buildings like the new Cavs training complex.

That bedrock is building down on the riverfront right now behind our city.

And then there are tiffs like this district that allow you to focus on public infrastructure and that's what we're talking about here with this district that spans downtown and some neighboring properties.

So the city created a mechanism where they can capture some of the increased property taxes from rising property values, both from appreciation and development over time.

And that money can go toward public infrastructure investments on the lakefront, on the riverfront, across downtown and out in the neighborhoods, things like parks and recreation centers.

And this is a new approach for Cleveland.

Other cities in Ohio have done this, and the city is looking at trying to do things like this in other parts of Cleveland in order to try to capture some of that revenue and put it into things that, you know, the city's general fund wouldn't pay for and where are they capturing the revenue from?

So it's increased property values.

So we're talking again about like appreciation in real estate over time and if there's new development potentially capturing increased value there.

And I should mention that these tests that we're talking about downtown, both the district and for the bedrock riverfront project, those do not impact the schools.

So unlike tax abatement, which is a tax break that the developer gets and in a lot of cases in Cleveland is 100% of the new tax bill.

This these tests will just capture the non-school portion of new taxes and the schools will get all of the upside.

This year was a tough one financially for institutions of higher education due to what's known as the enrollment cliff.

Fewer students, less tuition budget woes.

across northeast Ohio, universities, both large and small, public and private had to make difficult choices regarding staffing and in some cases such as Notre Dame College Closing the Doors for good.

CONNOR Each university has a situation that's particular to it, but larger.

There are similarities.

Declining enrollment, the enrollment cliff, that's that's not going away.

Yeah.

The kind of the consensus is that America is going to hit a peak of like 3.5 million high school graduates next year.

After that, it's just going to continue to shrink.

And that's like the traditional population of folks who attend, you know, higher education institutions.

But here in Ohio, even before that point, I mean, we've been seeing enrollment dropping significantly since like 2009, 2010.

That was the peak for a lot of our universities.

And now it's just been on a long trend downward.

There have been some positive signs this year.

And last year, Kent State, notably they've seen a couple of enrollment increases.

But the University of Akron, it's been bad news most years on their enrollment front.

It's almost half of what it was like about a decade and a half ago.

We mentioned Notre Dame College closed.

Ursuline is looking at a merger to keep its doors open.

Some of these smaller institutions, But you wonder whether a state institution at some point will will be a casualty.

That would be deeply concerning because state public universities are considered kind of economic engines for towns.

You would think about what that would do to Youngstown, for example, or even even Cleveland if CSU were to close or the University of Akron.

I mean, University of Akron, you know, 20,000 students, you know, CSU is smaller, but still, these are students who are attending the school there.

They're paying for rent locally.

They're buying stuff locally, research, you know, tons of jobs.

I mean, it's very significant for sure in that regard.

We heard the phrase right size in the reporting on higher education.

So the question is not just right sizing in the number of institutions, but right sizing at that institution, being focused on the kinds of majors that are being offered those types of things.

We saw some real interesting decisions made by boards.

What has the reaction been?

Have people have there been a hue and cry about that, or is it understood that these changes need to be made?

Yeah, I mean, people are worried for sure about and Wallace has gone through two rounds of layoffs so far this year at University of Akron.

They are discussing laying off about 35 faculty members right now and university of Akron.

They just laid off just a couple of years ago.

You know, I believe it was about 100 faculty or so.

And so people are really worried about the impact there on the quality of education, the programs as well.

Even at the University of Akron, they're kind of rock star polymer science program.

They are looking at laying off faculty in that regard as well.

So people are really worried about how it's going to change the fabric of the institutions.

oversight of police remained a top concern in Cleveland and Akron this year.

police involved shooting there that killed 15 year old Jasmine Tucker on Thanksgiving.

The shooting is reopening wounds that never healed after Jalen Walker shooting in 2022.

Where do we stand with that situation as the year ends?

Yeah, this this happened just recently and there's still a lot that we don't know, a lot of questions.

Even the mayor, Thomas Malik, himself, has questions.

Some interesting things with this one.

The officers involved didn't turn on their body camera, didn't turn on their cams.

So the only footage we have is from the right after the shooting happened.

So we can't hear it.

We can't see Tucker, until they eventually get to him, which they're also receiving criticism for not administering first aid in a timely fashion.

We should note he was armed.

They pulled a gun out of a zipped coat pocket.

Right.

But they're still questioned about because we couldn't see it about what the police officers were seeing.

Right.

Because as you mentioned, it was recovered after the fact.

When they zip open his coat and they find the gun.

So, you know, it's because there's no sound we can't hear.

If there were gunshots, you know, anything, if what they were saying before that.

So, again, as I mentioned, a lot of questions there have there has been a huge response from the community.

There's been some small protests and things like that.

The family is is very upset, obviously.

And like I said, kind of more to come on this.

There was a community police oversight board that was created after Jalen Walker's death that exists now as we are dealing with Jazzmeia Tucker's death.

What role will this have on this particular case in policing in general?

Yeah, this was a big year for the Citizens Police Oversight Board.

They hired a police auditor, so he's an independent auditor and he came from outside.

So he came from a different state.

And so he has made a lot of, you know, caused some stirs because he has issued these reports finding and disagreeing with the police department, finding some of their uses of force to be, quote, not objectively reasonable.

And so he's bringing up these questions about the use of force policy and saying that there's some issues going on in the culture of the police department.

So he's continuing to look at that.

And the review board is continuing to review these different cases.

And this has kind of partially inspired the city to review its use of force policy.

So that's something that we'll be watching next year.

There's a commission in Cleveland as well, a community policing commission.

Glenn, that has been mired in unproductive city.

In fact, the members are almost all being changed over as the year ends.

Tell me a little bit about what it has been able to do despite what appears to be some serious dysfunction.

So there is a new discipline and drone policy that has been forwarded to the federal authorities, the US Department of Justice, I should say, to make sure they do comply with the consent decree that's been in place since 2015.

A little bit about the discipline policy.

It removes discretion from some of the discretion rather from the police chief and public safety director on suspensions or firings.

The commission says officers actually want this because it levels the playing field.

And if you do this and this, you get this rather than kind of leaving it up to the police chief and public safety director.

The drone thing is interesting because you've got council members saying we provided the funding for this.

Where is it?

Let's get it off the ground.

We need help in some of these neighborhood situations.

But the approved policy that has now been sent to the Department of Justice, it kind of it prohibits surveillance of large gatherings unless it's under certain circumstances.

So there may be some, you know, disagreement between between council and the police commission on that.

But we'll have to see what the Department of Justice comes back with in terms of how they can comply with the consent decree, which is the whole goal of this thing.

Right, is to get into compliance so they can get out from under the consent decree.

They say there has been some progress made.

The commission says, they've gotten more cooperation from the city, less lawsuits to block the release of certain information.

So they seem to be making progress in some areas.

But as you mentioned, there are going to be some vacancies, nine vacancies expected early.

And, you know, coming up shortly, six commissioners, two terms will expire.

Three commissioners previously notified the city they're resigning for various personal reasons.

So some turnover there as well.

We'll see if they can continue the progress.

Tax bills will be sent out in January, and many owners are bracing for increases in mid 24.

Revaluation saw properties go up 32% on average.

In Cuyahoga County.

The appraisals happen every six years.

This one caught a lot of folks off guard.

Michelle, I don't think we can stress enough property taxes will go up, but not the same amount as a valuation.

So people are all saying my taxes are going to go up 32%.

They don't necessarily do that, but they are going up and people are about to see that.

Yes, they are.

In the vast majority of cases, we're talking about tax increases that are much, much smaller than the valuation increases.

People saw on the letters that they got this past summer.

And there are some cases where people will actually see their taxes go down because the value of their property rose less than the average increase in their community.

So so some people are going to be experiencing sticker shock.

Yes.

But others this is no big deal.

And in some counties they don't do the reappraisal same time Cuyahoga County does.

So we're talking really a specific group of people here.

It's not everybody that's watching the show or listening is going to be experiencing that right.

The property valuations take place on a rolling schedule across the state this year, in addition to Cuyahoga County going through its every six year full reappraisal process like Lorain, Portage and Stark Counties did the same thing.

And next year Medina County is up for its they call it the sex annual reappraisal and the trends we're seeing locally are similar to what other counties have been seeing across the state for the past few years.

You know, in the wake of the housing boom and COVID and everything, just values are way up and it takes a little bit of time for that to show up on the county's records.

Only on properties do we say our properties aren't as valuable as you say they are.

Usually it's a good thing my property is worth more, but when you got to pay taxes commensurate with that, often you'll see people challenge that.

And in fact there was an appeals process, an informal one and a formal one.

Where does that stand if people get breaks because of it?

I have actually talked to a couple of people this week who have heard back from Cuyahoga County on their informal appeals and did see reductions in their proposed values, which then will impact their tax bills if people did not file informal appeals this year or if they don't like the results of their informal appeals, they can file formal appeals starting early next year with the Cuyahoga County Board of Revision, and that's a more intensive process where they'll be scheduled for a hearing.

And if the outcome of that isn't favorable to them, they could even take it up to the Ohio Board of Tax Appeals.

One of the biggest events of the year unfolded in the skies over Cleveland, Akron and much of northeast Ohio and beyond.

On April 8th, the region was in the path of totality for an amazing solar eclipse.

It was Beautiful Skies cleared.

We got that for almost 4 minutes worth of darkness.

Wasn't it awesome?

Anna, You were out working.

Yeah, it was.

It was awesome.

I was in Akron at a park where they had done Eclipse weddings, so I got to witness that earlier in the day.

And then a bunch of people set up their chairs and we had a live show going at the time.

So if you want to hear my live reaction to the eclipse, you can go back and listen.

But I just remember being just struck with how cool it was.

It got so dark.

It was so neat.

We will link that to our show page today.

Glenn, you are the host of that sorry, man.

He was the guy who was in studio and didn't get to see it.

Let me tell you what I was so worried about pulling off the show, the fact that we did pull it off and that Anna was was great.

Jeff St Clair was on the roof of the Playhouse square garage.

That was great.

Abigail Boats are Zaria Johnson.

They were all out.

A big part of that.

The energy during those couple of weeks in Cleveland was incredible, which with the final for the Science Center had a great event just walking around downtown.

And then that day of the Guardians home opener and everything that was that was a special time this year for sure.

Even though I was in the basement studio, along with along with Chris Dudley, the technical producer there, who was also stuck there, it was an amazing experience to just sort of have nighttime happen for 4 minutes.

I would say that's one of my greatest experiences from 2024 and maybe a lifetime as well.

Monday on the Sound of Ideas on 89 seven KSU, we'll hear again our community tour discussion on the future of Akron's Inner Belt.

I'm Mike McIntyre.

I hope you're having a great holiday season.

Thank you so much for watching.

And stay safe.