(suspenseful music) - The Memorial Day holiday brings the unofficial start of summer and a focus on safety from city and state leaders.

A second lawsuit has been filed seeking to stop an August special election on making it harder to amend the State Constitution.

And activists protested in Akron over the Jayland Walker special grand jury decision this week, seeking a federal investigation of police.

"Ideas" is next.

(dramatic music) Hello and welcome to "Ideas."

I'm Mike McIntyre.

Thanks for joining us.

The Memorial Day holiday is here and safety is a top concern for city and state leaders as we head into the busy summer season.

From anti-violence measures to summer youth programs, to traffic calming strategies and boating safety, Cleveland and Akron leaders are pleading with the public to do their part to keep everyone safe.

A group challenging the state's planned August election where voters will decide whether to make it harder to amend the State Constitution has filed a second lawsuit.

This time, the group says the ballot language approved for State Issue 1 is deliberately misleading.

Hundreds of protestors came to Akron this week to demonstrate against the special grand jury's decision not to indict police officers in the shooting death of Jayland Walker.

They're calling for the US Department of Justice to investigate the Akron Police Department.

And Cleveland activist will launch a campaign to set aside 2% of the city's budget for the public to spend.

We'll talk about those stories and more on the "Reporters Roundtable."

Joining me this week in studio from Ideastream Public Media, Supervising Producer for Newscasts Glenn Forbes and Reporter Gabriel Kramer, in Columbus, Ohio Public Radio Statehouse News Bureau Correspondent Joe Ingles.

Let's get ready to roundtable.

Safety has been the word of the week from city and state leaders, and for good reason.

We've arrived at the long Memorial Day weekend, which marks the unofficial start of summer.

From gang and gun violence to highway and water safety, officials are asking for help.

Cleveland and Akron both have taken steps to increase neighborhood safety and to combat violent crime, which is on the increase.

One strategy, imploring residents to say something when they see something.

The city wants to provide activities for young people, give 'em safe places over the summer, there's a lot of money that's being put into neighborhood safety.

What is that strategy?

What does that look like?

What's the aim there, is basically keep kids busy?

- Families need a plan, kids need a plan.

And Sonya Pryor-Jones is the city's chief of Youth and Family Success.

Now, the fact that they have that position kind of tells you, right?

Right, what their plan is, what their aim is.

And she's saying that the city's gonna have daily programs at rec centers and at schools.

She says every single neighborhood.

There's STEM which, of course, science, technology, engineering, and math programs.

There's dance, eSports, video games, and photography, enrichment programs, academic programs.

And they're saying, "It's not enough to just say the kids are outta school and we're gonna take care of the crime part of this.

We need families and children to have a plan."

And they plan to provide these at the rec centers and schools in every neighborhood.

- What's interesting, we talked about this before when the then superintendent of schools, Eric Gordon was walking door to door with Mayor Justin Bibb.

That's happening again.

The mayor says he plans to go door to door if needed so city residents know about these summer programs.

It's one thing to have them, but it's another, and it's really hard to get that out if you're not talking about it in school, 'cause school's over.

How do people know that they have access to these things?

And literally it's door to door.

- Yeah, and this kind of door to door, grassroots, whatever you want to call it, has kind of been a staple of Justin Bibb and his administration so far.

He talks a lot about trying to get that word out.

But you're right.

If you're not a media consumer, a frequent media consumer, and if the kids aren't in school, it can be tough to kind of get that message out.

So how do you do it?

Well, I mean, in some ways, yeah, you gotta go door to door.

You gotta post signs, you gotta make sure, you know?

So like you said, a lot of this is part of an awareness campaign too, to make sure that these families and these kids know that, hey, these resources are available and it'll keep 'em off the streets and keep 'em out of trouble.

- Gabe, the resources are important.

I don't want to minimize that 'cause people might say, "Listen, people are getting shot in the streets and we're talking about eSports?"

But the fact of the matter is that stuff is important.

You've gotta give kids things to do.

On the other hand, the reason for that, and one of the frustrations is, and the mayor expressed this, we heard it on the newscast just before we came on, is the level of gun violence that's happening in Cleveland.

And Akron officials are feeling the same way.

And the mayor talked about frustration about what needs to be done at a higher level in the Congress to do something to help them get these guns off the street.

- Right, so it's gun control laws.

I mean, I think, reading that off the surface, it's what can be done to make it not so easy to get access to these guns.

But I'll read a little bit of his quote, he says, "Columbus and Congress DC have to give us more tools and enforcement powers to get guns off the streets."

Long term, I think people are thinking gun control laws, but in the short term, more ability to perhaps get assistance, perhaps boosting police presence in some regard.

And something more short term that they can take action quicker.

- I thought it was interesting as well that Mayor Bibb made it a point toward the end of the press conference to call out what he thought was some judges, he said, "Some of our judges are letting repeat offenders with gun violations back on our streets.

That's frankly unacceptable."

You hear that a lot from conservative circles when they talk about gun control.

They say, "We can have all the gun control we want, but if we have," and again, quoting conservatives, "if we have liberal judges letting criminals back out on the streets, what good does it do?"

So Mayor Bibb hit it on all angles, really.

He said, "We're gonna use data.

We're gonna hire these crime analysts.

We'd like to hire more police.

We know we're 230 short according to Chief Wayne Drummond.

We need more legislation and more gun control, but also we need judges to stop letting repeat offenders back on the streets."

- Jo Ingles, when Gabe was giving us the quote from the mayor, it started with Columbus, Columbus and DC.

So when we talk about Columbus lawmakers at the Statehouse have enhanced gun rights in the state, they've also taken steps to prevent cities from enacting their own safety laws.

I think that's what he's driving at.

- Right, right.

They have taken those steps to try to reign in what cities can do, take power away from cities.

We recently saw a law here in Columbus that affected the magazines that can be used in guns.

It affected straw man sales, those kind of things.

And a Delaware County court put that on hold.

There seems to be no consensus to go in the direction of reigning in the guns.

However, we are seeing Ohio lawmakers go the other way.

They're making it easier for citizens to own and carry guns.

And just this week, lawmakers considered a bill that would make Ohio a Second Amendment sanctuary state, basically saying that some of the Biden policies on guns, they couldn't be really enforced here.

And they're even, this bill even looks at not hiring federal employees who they think may come in with the intent of enforcing those federal gun laws.

- Hmm, what's interesting is how complicated this debate is because, as you talk about those things, what's happening in Cleveland are illegal guns on the street, not people who can go and carry a gun legally.

And often we hear about assault weapon bans, and we're not talking about assault weapons on the streets of Cleveland with the 66 deaths that have happened so far this year ahead of last year's pace, three ahead of last year's pace.

So that kind of discussion and debate you would think would happen.

But in Columbus, it seems as though there is no discussion debate, there's no, and in the nation as well, there's no a little bit, you know?

Enhanced background checks or other kinds of things.

We're not getting to the heart of that.

- No, not really.

I mean, that's not where lawmakers wanna go.

Now, there was a little bit of pushback on this Second Amendment bill the other day because it would've, the way it's written, depending on the interpretation, it could have affected hiring military folks and that sort of thing in Ohio to be on police forces.

And we all know that a military background is something that a lot of police forces actually like that.

So, but as far as actually taking any viable steps to reduce any kind of gun use or ownership down here, that's really not on the table right now.

- All right, well, we'll certainly be talking about the efforts to stem violence over the summer on the show during the week, as well as on Fridays too.

Let's talk about some other safety issues though that are coming up.

And again, it's 'cause it's the kickoff of the unofficial start of summer with Memorial Day.

Gabe, Akron is focused on street safety, literally driving safety.

In Cleveland, there are these speed tables, they're like little flat mounds that are put in the street and you can't fly over 'em or you're in a world of hurt.

And in fact, Cleveland wants to expand them.

In Akron, they're saying the same thing, "We wanna put these things in and cause people to slow down," because usually when you have high speed, that's when, if you have an accident, death occurs.

- Right, so you imagine these being not quite speed bumps, they're not as tall as speed bumps, they're longer and wider, but it'll definitely slow you down.

And pilot programs have existed in Akron for the last couple of years.

And in some areas, data is showing that cars are slowing down by six miles per hour on average.

And in residential streets, that goes a long way.

In Cleveland, you're finding that miles per hour is going down by about eight.

And in a residential street that's 30% of how fast people are supposed to be driving on those streets.

And the initiative to reduce traffic deaths is not necessarily people in cars, but being able to drive while respecting pedestrians on the road.

I mean, that's a big issue here in Cleveland and Akron wants to take a crack at solving it as well.

So you're talking about 21 new speed tables beginning June on 11 different streets in Akron.

- Yeah, and this has been a trend.

You're seeing this in a number of cities.

We wouldn't have known what a speed table was a few years ago and now I think it's, it looks like it's gonna become a pretty common thing in these residential neighborhoods.

- 'Cause it's not only working, but residents are requesting it.

So a lot of the new ones coming to Akron are based on input from residents and saying, "I would like one here."

So you're talking about two in each of the wards in Akron.

- There have been instances, including an incident last year where a child was killed in Cleveland, where residents wanted to take it upon themselves to build their own speed bumps.

- Yeah, yes.

Not only that, but you're seeing other grassroots organizations or grassroots efforts to, in addition to these speed bumps, do other things like really paint bright, vibrant crosswalks or yearn for, or request from the city bright lights that flash as people drive by.

So just drawing as much attention to, for drivers, to say, "Hey, there's people walking here, or will be walking here."

- It's one of the things Akron's gonna do too.

They'll have solar-powered speed indicators so that when you're driving down, you can see, "Oh geez, I'm going 52 miles an hour," and maybe that'll help slow you down as well.

Glenn, on the highways, a ton of people are gonna be traveling by car this weekend.

And then through the summer, that's when traffic really goes up.

The Ohio Department of Transportation has reminded folks also to slow down, especially in construction zones.

And I'm telling you, I was driving home the other day and it came upon me that that lane wasn't a lane anymore.

And luckily I had a little bit of room to my left, but I was not speeding down the highway, driving normally home, listening to Ideastream, and boom, I found cones where the lane should have been.

That's gonna happen a lot to people this summer.

- Yeah, we live pretty much in the same area.

I'm not thrilled with that traffic pattern change that came upon us, but yeah.

I mean, you're right.

And coming up with this holiday, obviously Memorial Day traditionally considered a driving holiday, 37 million Americans expected to get on the roads, travel is projected to be up despite high gas prices.

So with all these things, yeah.

And you've never known Ohio to have a bunch of construction and orange barrels at this time of year, have you?

But seriously, it seems like we go from the winter where ODOT is saying, "Our plow drivers are getting hit, you're crowding the plow, and our workers are in danger," to now the summer season where they're out and they're working, and again.

The quote from Brent Kovacs, who's the spokesperson for ODOT District 12, the Ohio Department of Transportation, "133 ODOT crews, including workers and equipment, were struck on Ohio roads last year."

He also mentioned the construction zones currently active on 480 from Lee Road to the 77 interchange and going out east further.

Look, I mean, if you spend any amount of time in Ohio, you know that this is the time of year.

It seems like it's maybe many other times a year, but especially this time of year, the orange barrels are out, the crews are gonna be out.

And you've gotta be careful and you've gotta slow down because, again, it seems like in the summer and in the winter, we're hearing the Department of Transportation saying, "Our crews are in danger.

People have to slow down and get over."

(dramatic music) - Abortion rights advocates have filed a second lawsuit seeking to block the August special election where voters will decide whether to make it harder to amend the State Constitution.

One Person One Vote filed a lawsuit with the Ohio Supreme Court centering on the wording for State Issue 1, which it calls misleading.

The wording was approved by the Ohio Ballot Board along party lines with three Republicans voting to approve it against the Democrats who opposed.

One Person One Vote claims the wording is misleading.

So why?

- Well, basically One Person One Vote is saying that the wording doesn't explain the current law and the change that's being requested.

And because of that, people may be misled into thinking that it's really easy right now to put something on the ballot.

So they feel like there ought to be some language on there putting it in context that was not added.

There are also some words that were used in it that have like dual meanings that could be used to persuade someone if they just saw that word.

So they're asking the Supreme Court to force the ballot board to go back and change that language, make it more nonpartisan and put it in better context.

- So when they say something like, first, "elevate," "should elevate the standard," that sounds like a positive thing.

- [Jo] It does.

- And then the other is if you just lay it out, saying, "Hey, there should be some way to amend the Constitution," you could read that and say, "Well, I didn't know there already was one, so what I'm voting for is yes, citizens should be able to amend the Constitution," when in fact, what it's saying is it should be a lot harder to amend the Constitution.

That's their argument.

- Yes, and under this amendment, it would be a lot harder.

It would require not only 60% threshold, which we now have 50% plus one, but it would also require signatures from all 88 counties.

That's not easy to get.

And if you had signatures that came in and you didn't have enough, right now we have what's called a cure period where you can go out and get more signatures to correct any problems with them.

You couldn't do that under this new amendment.

So it is a huge difference and a lot of people say it would prevent a lot of good legislation, good things that we have had in the past, constitutional amendments that we've had in the past, things, economic things like the Third Frontier Fund, things like that, that those things would be prevented in the future because of these higher thresholds.

- One of the things, one of the words I've been hearing a lot is hypocrisy.

And that is because the Republicans who are pushing for this August election had just voted to say, "We're not gonna have August elections because no one comes out to them and it costs us a ton of money, but we need to have this one."

And the reason for that is it's in advance of this November planned issue that likely will make it to the ballot, or at least there's a whole lot of effort, that would enshrine abortion rights into the Constitution.

So it's those who say that directly, you can say, "Okay, that's why they're doing it."

But yet you hear a bunch of other folks that say, "No, this isn't about that.

This is about protecting the Constitution from outside forces."

Which by the way, that whole effort is being funded with outside money.

But what about that whole argument and the number of people that said they didn't want this to happen, according to the reporting that you all have done, former attorneys general, former governors, et cetera.

But the current governor says he's fine with this.

- Yeah, Governor DeWine says he's fine with it because the Ohio Chamber of Commerce and the NFIB and the Ohio Restaurant Association, the Lodging and Hotels Association, all of those associations are coming out and saying that they don't want to have things put on the ballot and that they think that this amendment would help.

You think about things coming down the pipe maybe, minimum wage for example, that could affect things.

You could have all kinds of restrictions come down on businesses and businesses don't like that.

So Governor DeWine is saying, basically, he's listened to the businesses, there are some valid concerns, but also remember Governor DeWine is very much against abortion and he has made no bones about that.

And this big issue looming in November has a lot of Republicans upset.

But as you noted, Mike, there are a lot of Republicans who are coming out saying, "Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.

You're making a decision based on the abortion issue and you're not really looking at the constitutional issue going forward."

(dramatic music) - The police shooting death of Jayland Walker last year and the special grand jury's decision not to indict any of the officers involved brought hundreds of protestor to Akron on Wednesday.

They're demanding that the Department of Justice investigate the Akron Police Department.

Glenn, the Walker family attorney is proposing what he calls Jayland's Law, which would, in effect, prohibit police from chasing suspects who flee traffic stops.

- Yeah, we've seen this effort as well in Cleveland and a lot of different municipalities are taking a closer look at these chase laws, chase guidelines, policies, whatever you wanna call it.

I think it's interesting because what you're gonna have the police union saying and police groups are gonna say, "Well, what if the car is stolen?

What if the car is registered to someone who has a warrant?"

But what we've seen in the past is we've seen that these chases reach such high speeds, it puts other people in danger.

It's not just the officers or the suspect or whatever.

We've had other people in the city of Cleveland, innocent young people killed during these police chases.

So it is an interesting thing to look at.

A lot of municipalities are looking at it.

I think what is gonna be important here is the language of that.

- The whole idea, Gabriel, of traffic stops and how that can be the spark that leads to these types of endings.

- It's easy to look at Jayland Walker as a prime example.

It's easy to look back at 2012 and the death of Timothy Russell and Malissa Williams in Cleveland who were killed by police officers in a high speed chase as well.

And they were both unarmed and had several rounds shot through their car.

So I think you can look at this classic story, and I'll point out I'm not Black, but you hear it from Black men all the time telling their kids and their children, and you see it in TVs or movies or you hear it from friends, "If you're pulled over by the police, you comply as best you can."

It's "Yes sir," "No sir," "Yes, Officer," "No, Officer."

Because there are Black people living scared for the lives of what might happen if what might seem like a chase or might seem like an objection to authority can get out of hand and lead to people dying.

So this is definitely on the top of minds of perhaps a police chase or police stops shouldn't lead to police chases.

And that's been, you know, people in Akron have been very vocal about that lately.

- You hear that argument, but then you also hear from the folks that are like, "Wait a minute, someone is a criminal and could be," often, when you have traffic stops, we had an email earlier, that you find guns or other kinds of contraband or things that are dangerous to the community.

So basically, people can act with impunity.

- Well, I mean, it's certainly not a definitive thing, but when you're seeing so much of it being people who are unarmed or so much of it being people who got in a situation where they were being unfairly treated, that's when something needs to be done about it.

And that's when you need to realize, hmm, maybe do we need to rethink and reform how police stops are done.

- Shammas Malik, who is Akron's presumptive next mayor, came out with the protestors and promised that the change that he campaigned for is coming, what kind of change?

- He's talking about police reform.

And it's interesting because it's a pretty progressive idea that a lot of people who come off as progressive in Ohio are afraid to really be as vocal about.

Justin Bibb is in a similar sense where people don't want to upset the police, they wanna get support of the police.

They don't want to have this kind of tussle between the police department and the mayor's office.

And lately in Akron, people, especially after Jayland Walker's situation, have really been hammering for we need police reform.

They have the civilian oversight board.

So he's not afraid to maybe ruffle from some feathers with local police to get his point across.

- Yeah, I wonder how police might have felt about the fact that members of the oversight board were there with the protestors.

And on one hand you can say, "Okay, well, they're meeting with the protestors and seeing what they're about because we have to rule on these things," on the other, if they're out with protestors, are they really an impartial board?

- Well, here's the thing.

And what people need to understand is police reform isn't necessarily an anti-police concept.

It's improving the police, it's improving training for police, and having a police system that exists and just does a better job of policing and handling racial bias.

- Glenn, the activists, specifically on the Walker case, they want the full special grand jury transcript released.

They wanna know what was said and who said it.

And they also want the names of officers.

The city won't give the names of the officers and it can't release, under current law, the transcripts.

- Yeah, according to Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost, in his office, grand jury proceedings and their transcripts are secret.

They are not released under federal rules of evidence.

Yost's office will point to the fact that they've put the entire case file online, they've been as transparent as they possibly can regarding this case.

(dramatic music) - A Cleveland group that wants to put 2% of the city's budget in the hands of citizens will kick off a campaign later today.

The goal of PB CLE or Participatory Budget in Cleveland is to get a charter amendment on the November ballot.

Gabe, we saw earlier, and you covered this, a push for participatory budgeting and council pushing back, saying, "That's what we were put here to do."

Now they're saying, "Okay, well then let's get an amendment so we can say we were put here to do it for at least 2% of the money."

- Right, so the concept of this goal is to get 6,000 signatures and, in doing so, it can be put on the ballot, bypassing City Council.

City Council wasn't on board.

They didn't say completely no.

They said, "Please revise this and we'll table it and we'll come back to it and consider it."

The interesting thing is the ask in January was for $5.5 million of American Rescue Plan Act funding, and now they're asking for 2% of the general fund, which, if it were today, would be about $14 million, so even more money.

But yeah, this, in theory, would give people more direct power or more direct access in deciding what exactly is done.

They can propose ideas, propose projects, and then there could be a community vote on which of these projects and ideas get approved.

And an interesting thing that's in the language of this initiative is people 13 years old and up can not only propose concepts of what can be done with this money, but they also get to be part of the voting process.

- I wonder how that's gonna play with Council, which already was kind of obfuscating here, and now they're saying, "Hold on a minute.

You're gonna put federal or put government money in the hands of 13-year-olds?"

- Well, it's interesting because part of the discussion back in January when they said, "Please revise it," was let's think of ways that we can engage the youth.

And this is certainly a way to engage the youth.

And not only engage the youth, but engage people in general to want to get involved.

And a lot of the advocates are saying, "People are gonna be more excited that they can be more directly involved."

You know, voter turnout is low in Cleveland, like abysmally low, and people might be more willing to be engaged in a process like this.

(dramatic music) - Monday on "The Sound of Ideas" on WKSU, the team is off for the Memorial Day holiday.

In our time slot, we'll bring you a special episode of "Top of Mind," which examines efforts to preserve the memories and experiences of our nation's veterans to remember the sacrifices they made to preserve our freedoms.

I'm Mike McIntyre.

Thank you so much for watching and stay safe.

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