An amendment drive has started.

Hoping to ban data centers in Ohio.

Trustees voted no on a zoning application for a mega site in Lorain County.

And a meteor burned up in the atmosphere as it streaked across the northeast Ohio skies.

Ideas is next.

Hello, and welcome to ideas.

I'm Stephanie Haney, and for Mike McIntyre.

Thanks for joining us.

As data centers continue to pop up in Ohio, a handful of concerned citizens in the southern part of the state have launched a campaign to try to get them banned.

This comes as state lawmakers plan to study the impact of data centers in Ohio.

A controversial mega site project proposed for Lorain County's new Russia Township hit a snag this week when trustees unanimously voted against a zoning change for 600 acres of land, citing the vagueness of the request.

Much of Northeast Ohio saw on an unexpected show in the sky on Tuesday, a 17,000 pound meteor entered the atmosphere over Lake Erie before breaking up inland, likely over Medina County.

And a law that bans intoxicating hemp in Ohio, including THC infused drinks and candies, has gone into effect after efforts to delay the law fell short.

Joining me for the roundtable this week from industry and public media, local government reporter Abby Marshall and criminal justice reporter Matt Richmond in Columbus, we have Statehouse News Bureau chief Karen Kasler.

Let's get the conversation started.

Some people in rural southern Ohio.

One.

Voters to decide whether the state should stop rolling out the welcome mat for data centers.

The group wants to put it to a vote with a proposed constitutional amendment.

So, Karen, this amendment proposal, what are they hoping to do with this?

Well, it wouldn't be a ban on all data centers.

The goal would be to ban the mega AI data centers, anything that uses more than 25MW.

And this is a group of rural Ohioans in Adams County, which is southwest Ohio.

And what they're hoping to do is, is get a lot of signatures in a very short period of time.

Now they've just started the process.

They filed a petition with the attorney general.

He still has to approve it.

He has to do that by next Thursday, this coming Thursday.

And then if they get that go ahead, they can go to the ballot board and then they can start the process of gathering more than 413,000 valid signatures, which means you got to gather a lot more than that.

And they've got to do it by July 1st if they want to make this year's ballot.

So it's a tall order ahead of them.

But when I talked to one of the group members, she said, hey, we have we think we've got a good argument here.

Okay.

So it is a long process ahead of them, but they're going to make a go for it.

We know, Karen, a lot of the data centers already in the state are in rural parts in Ohio.

And the people behind this proposed amendment are from rural southern Ohio, Adams and Brown counties.

And they're upset about lack of transparency from decision makers.

What is it about that that's bothering them?

Well, they say that in their conversations with local officials, they've been told that nondisclosure agreements prevent certain information from getting out.

They also said they're worried about things like land use and water use.

And right now, the EPA is in the process of coming up with a new way to regulate discharge of water from data centers, because data centers use an awful lot of water.

And so they're concerned about that.

And, you know, for a lot of people in rural Ohio, they live in that area or they move to that area because of the climate.

In terms of there's not a whole lot of activity going on.

There's no not a whole lot of big buildings and that sort of thing.

And so they're concerned about these places going in on these huge sites and taking up big swaths of their rural counties.

And so, you know, it's the second proposal that we've seen from citizens trying to push back on what they think the state government is doing wrong.

And it goes along with the other one that I'm mentioning, the move to abolish property taxes.

That's another all volunteer effort put together by a group that was frustrated with what property taxes have been in Ohio.

So we've got these two out there that really show there's a a growing frustration with those two issues and with state government and even local government in general.

So when we look at the data center, some things that people kind of try to look at when they're thinking about this are jobs that are created, but that seems to also be a concern for these people.

What are they saying about that?

Well, there's some questions about the jobs that are created.

And for our TV show, The State of Ohio this week, I spoke to two people who are on opposite sides of the political fence most of the time.

Hannah Halbert from Policy Matters, Ohio, which is a progressive group, and Greg Lawson from the conservative Buckeye Institute.

And they agree that this is a bad idea to just ban these large data centers.

They think there's other ways to deal with the current issues here.

But the question of how many jobs are created, you know, conservatives, Buckeye Institute, state government has been saying that these things do create a lot of jobs.

The Ohio Chamber of Commerce says 95,000 jobs in Ohio as of 2024 were connected to data centers.

But there are others who say there's really not a whole lot of evidence that that's what's happening and that a lot of these jobs, while they are good union construction jobs, good paying jobs are temporary.

And that these places for the size that they are, they really don't employ that many people.

And yet they're getting these big tax breaks.

And so there's some real questions about how much is the state and local government paying in terms of tax breaks for the jobs and economic development that's created?

Now, you did mention some lawmakers who were saying it would not necessarily be a good idea to outright ban these data centers, but there is a plan for a data center study commission.

Can you tell us about that, Karen?

Yeah, that's been interesting because it's really brought forward people who are opposed to data centers.

And the lawmakers who are involved in this are saying, no, no, no, this is just a study to look at what data centers are doing and to not just rely on, say, the Chamber of Commerce.

You know, you want to find a good idea, an independent analysis of what's happening with data centers.

So that's moving forward.

There's also a bipartisan bill that's been proposed that would extend a tariff that American Electric Power has agreed to pay throughout the state.

Basically, it requires utilities to basically pay or I'm sorry, it requires data centers to pay 85% of the costs of, what they expect to basically, use and basically the whole idea of that is really just to, try to not put it all on ratepayers for the use of energy that data centers have, but really to try to make data centers pay more of that.

But the argument of that is, well, if data centers have to pay more for their energy, they're just going to build their own energy generation.

And so then customers will still ratepayers will still have to pay more because they want the utilities won't be making money from the data centers.

The plan to develop a mega site in Lorain County hit a snag on Tuesday.

New Russia Township trustees unanimously voted against an application to rezone a 600 acre piece of land from agricultural to industrial use.

Matt, can we first start by explaining what a mega site is?

Well, it as far as I can tell, it's something that came up, that sort of developers, have created.

There is something in state law called to make a project, and that was created to give kind of state incentives to, developments like the Intel, chips semiconductor chip factory in Columbus.

And, you know, the hope that there would be more projects like that.

But the they call this a mega site because it's it's supposed to be above, more than a thousand acres and, you know, owned by a single owner or kind of all ready for development.

So when you bring it to a to a developer, there are no complications about kind of land use rights in that piece of property.

Shovel ready is a term that I've heard.

So very easy to get something up and going.

Yeah, enormous and quick to start work.

Okay, so we know the vote was already met with a standing ovation from township residents and opponents.

Does this vote derail the project?

So I mean, that's an interesting question.

The first thing is that the vote was about about 600 acres of, of privately owned land that, developers wanted to rezone to be able to make one of these big projects.

It sits right next to close to a thousand acres of county owned land that's been kind of zoned for this sort of development for years, since May 2022.

So the they could find companies to go into that piece of land.

Then, you know, the, the owners kind of have the right to, to challenge this decision in court.

And then there's a there's a process too, for being annexed.

So these landowners could ask Elyria, for instance, the city of Elyria, to kind of take their land in.

And then the decision would be up to Elyria, how this land should be zoned.

And there's a $67 million state loan that's potentially impacted here.

Yes.

And that is kind of towards the bigger project that the county commissioners, want to create a sewage system in that part of the county, which would really open up from, you know, north of Oberlin, up to the lake to development.

And it's really an agricultural area now.

And so they want to put a pipe from where this mega site is to another pipe that runs north and then build likely a new wastewater treatment plant.

And so that $67 million was to plan for that project.

And the county commissioners that I've spoken to say that's still planned for and we're still full speed ahead with that.

Okay.

So opponents of this project are complaining that there's a little information known about what would go on this mega site.

Is that information that is known that is not being shared with them?

Is that information available?

So there's no as far as anybody knows, there's no like formal agreement with any company to go in there.

They're the county.

And it's also, being prepared for by Team Neo, the, the economic development agency in this region.

And so they've said that they've had companies come to them.

This whole thing sort of started back in 2022 when there were visits by representatives from, semiconductor chip manufacturers.

And they said, you know, if this site is going to have a company like ours come into it, you need to you need to make it larger.

You need to get more of the infrastructure.

And so there's been interest and they've talked to companies but nothing formal yet.

Okay.

Now Lorain County missed out on the Intel project, which you mentioned earlier.

That's the massive multibillion dollar semiconductor manufacturing campus being built very slowly near Columbus, Ohio.

That project has hit delays, which has worried residents there.

So what are the concerns related to those delays?

Well, so, you know, the the idea behind this, this project and collecting all this land together and making it ready for a develo company like like that.

And then, you know, then around it there would be suppliers and other kind of economic development that would be connected to it.

But the initial idea was something big, like like that.

And, you know, it's not it's times have changed since since 2022.

It's not there's not kind of that optimism that companies are going to come the way that it was thought that they were going to come back then.

And, so, you know, a lot of residents say we don't want any of that, but, we, we particularly don't want to be stuck with something like a, like a data center where there aren't many jobs, where it takes a lot of water, has a lot of power needs, and where it just disrupts life here.

And the benefits are minimal.

So now we're going to have to go through all of this for, you know what exactly.

Yeah.

Who knows what.

Definitely a lot of unknown there.

So Matt what's next for the project now that this vote's happened?

Well, you know, like I said, the county commissioners are full speed ahead to get that sewage in.

And, you know, in their in the award from the state and in their application, having something in that mega site is sort of central.

And the state said, we're we're giving you this money to prepare sewage because there's a company moving into that site.

So, you know, they they can get somebody into that airport.

And then on that 600 acres of where the rezoning failed, you know, the the landowners there have options and they could try to force some something to happen there.

And I, you know, the trustees at the meeting, this week said, we know that, you know, we we want to make sure that there is something that makes this area sustainable.

We're not against development, you know, period.

We just want the developer.

We want the county.

We want to have, more of a conversation with with residents.

We feel like this is forced on us.

So you may see it go forward in more of a collaborative way as opposed to like, this is what we want to do.

So, you know, accept it.

Okay.

Northeast Ohioans got an unexpected free show this week when a meteor streaked across the sky before breaking up over Medina County.

Now, Abby, people were certainly surprised by the meteor, but is this a rare thing that happened?

Finally, we're getting to the big important story of the day.

Yeah.

I mean, I think we were all chatting before with our little anecdotes of what we heard and, not thinking much about it, but I think what really freaked me out when I heard a loud boom.

Especially living in the city of Cleveland.

I didn't think much of it.

But getting on Facebook and seeing people from Beachwood to West Lake like, what could it possibly be?

But actually, this is the second, meteor that has come in across the Ohio skies in a little over a month.

And they don't think that anything touched down.

Typically when meteors come into the atmosphere, they burn up and break apart before they ever touch anything.

It's just that loud when when something's traveling faster than the speed of sound.

That's what created that sonic boom and that phenomenon that bonded us all on the same Patty's Day.

You know, we went from 75 degree weather to snow to a meteors or something.

I don't know, Cleveland is either.

Buster Kirst I don't know.

There was something in the air and it was a meteor in this case.

Matt, did you hear the meteor?

I did, and my house shook.

But, you know, I was busy.

Yeah, that was really cool.

I went I did give a cursory hello in case someone came in and then kind of shrugged.

Yeah, yeah.

Unbothered.

I have serious FOMO.

Actually.

I was down here in the studio when this happened.

You know, sound of ideas kicks off a little after 9 a.m., so I didn't hear it, but I definitely saw all of the reaction on social media after that.

And so some people are wondering, they're questioning, you know, why didn't NASA track this object?

Why didn't we know this was coming?

So why Abby?

Well, as I said, it's the sheer, like, speed of how quickly these things move.

So by the time it was even able to be detected, locally, it was already coming into the atmosphere.

But also think about a big hunk of space rock that's just black up against the vacuum of space, right?

It's really hard to see unless sunlight is reflecting off of it.

So, you know, it's one of those things where we didn't know until it was just a happy surprise.

I guess it's since no one got hurt, we can call it, beat surprise.

That's true.

That is definitely happy.

Heather actually wrote in and said people are looking for meteor debris.

There's been no report of damage caused by this debris.

We're very thankful for that.

And Heather is wondering, how likely is it that there is some debris with no reported damage?

We know people are looking.

What do we think?

Yeah, I've really enjoyed all these stories about the Meteorite Hunters, and even before the show, I was kind of looking at pictures of meteorites to see, especially when you're looking talking about like the Hinckley area, Medina County, where they believe that a lot of this fell.

I don't know how you would detect, just a regular rock in a park from a meteorite.

I was looking at this thing, and it said meteorite versus meteor.

Wrong of how to identify them.

So, I don't know, maybe the people I saw that people were coming from all over the country to come, to come look for them.

So maybe they are they have a more skilled eye.

But I think I think though if we find it, it's got to be a Northeast Ohio.

And that finds that.

I would be so sad if someone came.

I guess if you make all that effort.

But, yeah, I don't know.

I'll be interested to see if anyone comes forward with with verified meteorite.

I'll be honest, if I find some meteor debris that's going on eBay immediately.

Now that I know people are coming from other countries to look for these things.

A new Ohio law that bans intoxicating hemp goes into effect today after efforts to block it fell short.

This includes a ban on hemp infused THC drinks and candies.

Karen, what does this mean for things that were legally being sold in Ohio yesterday?

Well, those, that intoxicating hemp that can only be sold through retailers that are authorized by the state.

So basically marijuana dispensaries and then those THC and CBD infused drinks, which you can find all over the place.

They are banned as well.

Now, they were potentially going to be banned anyway because of action at the federal level.

That was part of that one big beautiful bill or I'm sorry, it was part of the settlement of the shutdown last fall.

But DeWine, governor Mike DeWine had been really clear that he wanted something to happen here with regard to intoxicating hemp.

And his argument has been that this is stuff that was unregulated and kids could access it.

It was being sold at convenience stores and gas stations, and he wanted more regulation.

So Senate Bill 56, this bill kind of combined those two things of intoxicating hemp and also making some changes that lawmakers had wanted to make to the marijuana law that voters approved in 2023.

And we do know that the governor struck out a measure in the law that would have carved out a short term exemption to allow these things to continue to be sold.

So why did that happen.

Well he basically said that that was not appropriate, that there shouldn't be that carve out going to ban intoxicating hemp or to ban it.

And so that sparked at least one, if not two lawsuits, depending on how you count it.

There's a lawsuit in the Ohio Supreme Court from some of these brewers who were saying this was, overstepping his bounds, I guess.

And then there was also a lawsuit was filed only on Tuesday trying to stop this law from taking effect.

And late last night, there was a ruling in Franklin County from a judge saying this lawsuit's been rejected and the law can go ahead and go into effect.

There's also this repeal effort that was working toward trying to gather enough signatures to put this before voters this fall.

And this was a group, again, of hemp retailers who were trying to stop the law.

If they got enough signatures by yesterday, they could have stopped the law from going into effect.

They announced, I think it was late Wednesday that they were not going to make that.

And so the repeal effort at this point has completely failed and the law is in effect.

Changes to Ohio's dangerous dog law are now in effect.

Those changes are collectively known as Avery's Law, named after a teenage girl who was attacked by two pitbulls near Columbus while she was visiting a friend's house for a playdate.

Now, Karen, these changes put the responsibility on dog owners to make sure their dogs are contained.

How so?

Well, this basically says that owners of dangerous or vicious dogs must have at least $100,000 in liability insurance.

They must keep their dogs confined.

When people are coming over, they've been invited on the property, and they could face stiffer penalties if they fail to keep their dog from biting or attacking someone.

And this comes from a case.

This, girl, Avery, she was attacked by a dog.

And, I mean, it was really devastating, testimony here.

And it was actually chronicled in, the Columbus Dispatch by my colleague Laura Bischoff about how much she went through and the the pain and suffering she went through because she was attacked when she was on a play date, seeing a friend.

So this really tries to and there have been other cases.

That's that's just one.

There have been other cases where even there have been people who have died after being attacked by vicious dogs.

So this just gives a little bit more, puts a little bit more on the owners of the dogs to make sure that those dogs are confined, so that when people come over, they do not they're not at risk.

The law also gives dog wardens more authority to seize dogs, and this is kind of viewed as a one strike law.

How is that working?

Well, we require dogs to be put down that seriously injured or kill a person in an unprovoked, provoked attack.

And so, I mean, I think the law before that kind of gave a little bit of a grace period or a second chance for some of these dogs, but this is, definitely a euthanasia action.

If a dog is vicious in terms of an attack or, you know, hurts a human.

And Matt, what about dogs protecting themselves or maybe they're provoked or protecting their owners and canine officers.

How does that work in this.

Yeah I guess you could say there's a bit of due process for the dogs.

If they are provoked or they're playing, and it's sort of like maybe gets out of hand by a, by, by accident.

There is there are some, you know, it's not just black and white.

If a dog hurt you, the dog will be put put down.

There are some kind of exceptions.

And then for canine dogs, they have kind of always enjoyed that similar, kind of protections that any police officer would like, like qualified immunity.

That kind of applies to, to a police dog Cleveland is tweaking its new parking policies again after the city put revised parking rules into place in January, which included dynamic pricing.

Abby, why is the city changing the policy now?

Yeah.

So beginning in January, the city began changing how, parking policies were downtown.

So now downtown, which previously had free weekends and free after six.

It is, 7 a.m.

to 10 p.m., seven day a week enforcement.

And also with that, the pricing policy changed as well with the the flat rate going away and instead kind of increasing per hour.

So that has been changed in some parts of Cleveland.

So we have areas in Playhouse Square, near Wksu Cleveland State University, where they have looked at Park Mobile data, which is the new app that was rolled out to replace the parking meters to actually look at usage, because before with coins you couldn't tell when people are using it, how often, except when someone comes by and takes the coins out.

So the city said that they will be looking at the usage and looking after some of those lesser used areas to adjust.

And in that case, they took off the four hour cap, and that they said that there will be a flat $1.50 cent rate, for four hours or beyond if since they took off the app.

So we know the mayor wants people to know about this.

He put on an Instagram video directly about it.

I saw this on social media the other day.

So with this in mind, and the fact that they've made these changes, has the launch of the new public policy's been smooth for the city of Cleveland and for drivers?

I think that that's subjective.

I did a story last month where I spoke to downtown business owners that were worried, you know, kind of on both sides.

Some people said the churn is good.

You know, having that cap, having making parking more expensive is going to increase churn for places like restaurants, etc., etc.. But other places like fitness studios said, you know, people are coming here anyway, and this is just an added cost that people might just go to the suburbs or someplace where they don't have to pay as much.

And then the real strain is on workers.

So you talk about having an eight hour shift, and if you have a four hour cap, you're paying sometimes for that for four hours, $11, close to $11 to, to park in some of these areas downtown.

So that is subjective.

But I think that the complaints have been, you know, loud enough and valid enough, at least in the eye of the mayor's office, that they have altered these policies, which is something, in fairness, that they told me that they were, you know, looking to do with that data usage going forward.

The video did say we promised we would listen and we are listening and making adjustments.

All right.

Let's talk about today and today being the start of spring.

It's been a real roller coaster for weather.

Over the last week.

We had warm temperatures.

We had a windstorm that knocked out power for thousands without outages lasting well into this week.

For some, we had below freezing temperatures for part of the week, mid for a very chilly Saint Patrick's Day parade in downtown Cleveland.

Now, by some reporting, it may have been the coldest in decades, but in about an hour, spring arrives.

Temperatures appear to have gotten the memo and will be in the 50s for Cleveland today, maybe even into the 60s and warmer away from the lake.

Are we buying it?

Matt, how do you feel?

Is spring going to stick around this time?

Yes, I can tell, because, my dog's arthritis is improving.

Good.

I love that sign of spring.

Yeah.

What's your dog's name?

His name is item.

Okay.

Ayden.

We love that.

What about you, Abby?

What do you think?

Oh, I I'll believe it when I see it.

I feel like we've had so many false starts.

And a literal hunk of flaming space rock fell over Cleveland today, so I don't think it's, you know, it's.

This week is wonky.

Who knows?

I could be wrong.

Yeah, I didn't mention the hunk of flaming space back from Tuesday when I was talking about the weather anomalies here.

And what do you think is spring in it for us now?

All I know is two weeks from today I will be in the studio with you folks because I will be coming to Cleveland for the home opener for the Guardians.

That is spring.

Let's go.

Yes.

And we do know, you know, today's the start of astronomical spring in the vernal equinox.

So, meteorologists consider March 1st to be the start of spring.

Although, given the weather that we have had this March, I just don't know about that.

But, very excited for anyway, astronomical spring to begin today.

Monday on the Sound of Ideas on 89 seven.

KSU is age just a number.

We'll talk to three Ohioans who gave finding Love a try on two Netflix dating shows The Age of Attraction and Love Is Blind.

Plus, we'll talk to a Shaker Heights native, journalist and author David Pogue, about his new book, Apple The First 50 years.

I'm Stephanie Haney, and for Mike McIntyre, thanks for keeping the conversation going on the roundtable.

Have a great weekend, everybody.