(upbeat music) - Cleveland City Council is cracking down on absentee landlords with a big overhaul of housing codes.

The City of Akron will pay out more than $700,000 to protestors arrested after the police shooting death of Jayland Walker.

And will the Brown stay on the lakefront, or could the team build outside of Downtown?

Ideas is next.

(upbeat music) Hello, and welcome to Ideas, I'm Mike McIntyre.

Thanks for joining us.

Cleveland is cracking down on property owners.

New Residents First legislation proposed by Mayor Justin Bibb and passed by council, requires out-of-town landlords to have a local representative who can be held liable for the property.

The special taxing district proposed by the mayor to promote development in Downtown Cleveland, dubbed Shore-to-Core-to-Shore had better include more according to city council, which says, "At least half of the proceeds must fund development in Cleveland's neighborhoods outside of downtown."

Akron has settled with protestors who sued over mistreatment by police in the aftermath of the Jayland Walker shooting.

The city paid more than $700,000.

And the Browns are reportedly looking to purchase property in Brook Park.

Is the team planning a new stadium there, or is it a pawn in negotiations with Cleveland for renovations?

Joining me for the round table, Ideastream Public Media reporters, Anna Huntsman and Matt Richmond, and in Columbus, Statehouse News Bureau Chief Karen Kasler.

Let's get ready to round table.

Cleveland is going after bad landlords and blighted property with stricter housing codes in the most extensive overhaul in decades.

Matt, one big problem has been out-of-town bad actor landlords who just can't be located and held accountable.

This aims to fix that.

- Yeah, it would have a local agent that would have to be kind of like listed on the forms that all landlords have to file with the city.

And now that person, if there are problems, if the city starts ticketing them or needs to bring them to court down the road, that person is the one who is held liable.

And so they would have to pay the tickets and then they could turn around and sue the owner.

So, you know, one thing that kind of jumps out as a, let's think name, how are landlords now gonna find a local agent in charge to- - [Mike] Willing to do that?

- Yeah, to be in that position.

- It's an interesting point, and that's always been the frustration.

I remember talking to Tony Brancatelli, who was councilman in Slavic Village and a leader on this issue.

And the biggest problem was finding who owns these blighted properties.

If you have someone locally who's got a stand for it, it's gonna be a completely different story.

What they need is somebody who lives in Cuyahoga County, and it's for anyone who doesn't live in Cuyahoga County or one of the surrounding counties as well.

So, that's what's considered out-of-town.

- Yeah, yeah, anything beyond a, not, you know, a contiguous county, so anything beyond a neighboring county.

- Let's talk about the point-of-sale inspection, because if you live in a suburb, many suburbs, there are point-of-sale inspections outside and inside to make sure that houses are in good shape as they change hands.

In this case it's for vacant properties, one in three family residents, but it's only exterior inspections, not interior.

And that was a big concern of council if they were to do all of that at once.

- Yeah, and this initially it was, it was gonna be both when the idea was first announced by the mayor's office, and it got a lot of pushback from landlords with a concern that this would slow down transactions a great deal.

And, you know, inspections aren't free, and to, if you own a bunch of apartments to have an interior inspection and every one of them would be a big expense that would then be passed on to renters.

And so the compromise was the exterior only inspection.

And I think for council, that's one of those things, like so many of the things that end up going through council are based on how many calls the council members get.

And if there's one call that you hear about over and over again, it's about the house on the street with the overgrown weeds and the falling down porch and how that just is, you know, has so many negative effects on that block.

And so at least the exterior inspection and the requirements about bringing it up to code would address those concerns, hopefully.

- And there is a grace period until the summer, but then that kicks in.

All the other piece of the legislation are in effect immediately.

It's 50 pages long, has a lot of detail.

We're just hitting the highlights here.

For one, it expands the existing rental registry that requires any property that is not owner occupied now to be registered and known to the city, it would take it from 63,000 on the registry to 100,000.

- Yeah, and then there would also be, you know, the registration for commercial properties would require a fund provided by the owner so that code violations could be fixed without, you know, waiting for them to get somebody out to do it.

And then also, interestingly, if properties are owned by government entities, like a land bank, but they're not supposed to be demolished, those also have to be registered so the city knows where they all are.

- It used to be that all violations were criminal.

And you mentioned just a couple minutes ago writing a ticket.

Part of this legislation allows there to be civil fines levied to people, a civil ticket, essentially meaning that it doesn't have to go through the court process, and these tickets can build up in terms of what they owe.

- Yeah, yeah, yeah, the hope I think is that it'll move much quicker.

And so that'll compel the responsible party to make the fixes, you know, you'll still be able to appeal it and there'll be hearings in a city office as opposed to in court.

- The usual process, yeah.

- And I just wanted to add that Akron has had similar issues, particularly with out-of-town landlords not being responsive to residents complaints and issues that are going on in apartment complexes and whatnot.

There was actually a meeting held, a community forum a couple years ago that I attended and council was talking about making changes and they formed a new committee about it, and I believe that was right before the death of Jayland Walker.

So, I think that kind of maybe got pushed to the side a little bit as the city kind of grappled with that for the last couple of years.

So, that'll be interesting to check in about that now that Cleveland is moving forward with things.

- I would think one of the concerns in Akron and Cleveland and any big city is enforcement of any kind of law that you do have.

And so this is a really ambitious set of new regulations, and we have a building and housing department that I would think would be taxed by it.

But when our reporters and others talk to the head of building and housing in Cleveland, she said she didn't foresee any problem enforcing.

- Yeah, yeah, they said that they'll have enough staff that they're have to hire a few more, but there's space in the budget for that.

And, you know, it'll be interesting to see how enforcement works.

Are they going to, you know, presumably it'll be based on complaints and they'll go out when there are complaints.

So, it'll be interesting to see exactly how much of a coverage they get on all the houses that have violations.

- When you drive through many neighborhoods in Cleveland, you see what they're up against there.

As you mentioned, you know, the house on the street that has an overgrown yard or a falling down porch.

There are many neighborhoods where there are people trying to keep up their properties, and it's not one, it's most of the houses in that neighborhood are in that way.

So, this is really targeting a huge problem.

And one that Sally Martin O'Toole, who heads the building and housing department said that residents expect the city to do something about.

- Yeah, this has been such a long standing problem and you know, it'll be interesting to see if this works, but this is something new that they're trying to do.

And since I've been here this is something you hear every year in council.

"Why isn't building and housing getting on top of this?"

So here is there, here's a real attempt to do that.

(upbeat music) - The Ohio House passed a $2 billion appropriations bill this week that will funnel millions into Northeast Ohio projects.

Karen, the house passed the bill quickly without any public hearings?

- Yeah, and that's not all that unusual here at the State House.

(laughs) However, there were some Republicans who did not like that, which is interesting because I think there are a lot of Democrats who would say, "Hey, it's happened to us, and it it goes forward anyway."

But this was a huge spending plan, more than $2 billion in spending and 350 million for these local community projects, which, I mean, it's the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, the land bridge connecting Downtown Cleveland to the Lake Erie shore.

There's just so much in here.

There's stuff for Columbus and Cincinnati and all sorts of other areas.

All but 16 counties got something out of this funding.

- You get a car, and you get a car, everyone got a car.

- But this is what the capital budget process is like.

I mean, communities submit their wishlists and then they get funded or they don't, and sometimes they don't get funded at the level they want.

- Then lobbyists go to work.

- Yes.

- [Mike] And then communities get funded at a level they hope, or not.

- Yeah, but these are typically bills that pass pretty easily, because everybody in the legislature wants to bring money home to their communities.

So, it was interesting to see this get a little bit of pushback and it got pushed back early on, on social media from some Republican lawmakers who said they didn't like that there wasn't enough debate on this.

That this bill was too big to not have some more debate.

And they planned to vote against it, 19 of them did.

- But what's behind that though, isn't it, that there is still a continuing power struggle over the speaker of the house and the guy who thought he was gonna be speaker of the house.

- Yeah, this is more of the same that we've seen on even some basic things.

I mean, in this particular session there was a vote to adjourn, which I mean, I'm not sure that we've seen that in a very long time, if ever.

So, it shows that there still is a lot of disagreement among majority Republicans.

The supporters of Derek Merrin, who had been elected speaker back in 2022.

He then lost on the floor to Jason Stephens, and were in the primary season here where the 22 Republicans who supported Jason Stephens for speaker have been censured by the Ohio Republican Party.

The other Republicans who voted for Derek Merrin, some of them are still pushing back against Stephens.

And that's what happened here, where there were people who supported Merrin, who tried to stand up on the floor to complain about this and to potentially introduce other bills, including that one that would do some things with higher education.

For instance, ban most diversity, equity, and inclusion training and require intellectual diversity on controversial topics.

They tried to raise that bill on the floor and they didn't, they weren't recognized by Stephens.

So, a lot of the struggle was going back and forth.

What I thought was interesting in the end though, Derek Merrin, who a lot of these people who voted against this bill supported, Derek Merrin voted yes.

So, I thought that was just kind of an interesting conclusion to all this.

- Yeah, very interesting.

Let me just ask you this.

So, usually when we talk to you and we talk about how the house passes is something we've gotta wait for the Senate to make sure that it's okay.

Is that the same case in this instance?

- Actually, yes.

Because typically this is one of these bills that the House and Senate agree on, and it sails through almost unanimously.

That's not the case in the House, obviously.

And that social media concern before the vote here, that was also a concern shared by Senate President Matt Huffman, who sent a memo to his members saying, "It would be irresponsible for us to vote for this big spending bill without more debate.

And that there was no agreement between the House and Senate to move this thing forward at this time."

So, that's signaling that it's gonna have some problems maybe when it gets to the Senate, which has its own set of, its own pool of money that it's gonna be distributing.

But it should be noted that Matt Huffman, the president of the Senate, who's term limited is running for the House and is likely to challenge Jason Stephens' speaker if they are both elected this year.

- One of the biggest projects receiving the one-time money we mentioned is the proposed land bridge connecting Downtown to the lakefront.

It's getting $20 million.

And by the way, a little bit more later when we talk about the Browns and where they might either renovate or build a stadium, this comes into play at some point there.

Matt, though the idea has been out there, since the Browns owners floated it a few years ago, it's a whole lot more than 20 million, but that's a nice big boost.

- Yeah, and you know, I first heard about it when I got in, like 2016, did a story about a developer who built some apartments down there and a restaurant, and he was saying that the only way to really fully develop the land down there was to get a land bridge.

And he kind of stepped back, the Haslams took it over and that gave it kind of an extra oomph.

- Right, don't have to play Frogger anymore to get down to the lakefront.

Karen, it's not the first time lawmakers tried to put money toward the Land Bridge.

- No.

This is one of those that keeps coming back.

And once again, these are kind of wishlist projects that lawmakers and community leaders say they wanna work on.

And I think this is just an example of one of those things, and I suppose some of these things just never do come to pass, but boy, $20 million is a lot of money to put toward a project.

- Other projects, $7 million for the Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton.

Anna, that's not for the Hall of Fame Village- - [Anna] Correct.

- That's for a renovation of the actual Hall of Fame itself.

- Yeah, we talk a lot about the Hall of Fame Village, that ongoing project, but this is actually for the OG, the museum itself, the Hall of Fame, the Pro Football Hall of Fame, which- - [Mike] The original gangster - The original, yeah, sure, the OG.

So, this is actually an $80 million project that's been kind of ongoing.

It's the first big makeover of the Pro Football Hall of Fame since it was built in the '60s.

So this, you know, 7 million, a little bit toward the project, but I'm sure they're still hoping that's gonna get passed in the Senate.

- They're talking about making this big grand lobby.

It would also then- - [Anna] Yes.

- become a space, you could have events there.

So, it's a completely different use of the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

- Correct, so it would be not just that, you talked about the Grand Lobby, but there's also a permanent home for the Black College Football Hall of Fame, and also an event center complex.

So, lots going on there.

(upbeat music) - The NEOtrans blog, citing three anonymous sources, reported this week that the Haslam Sports Group, owners of the Browns may purchase a large parcel of land in Brook Park near Cleveland Hopkins International Airport.

It could be a possible stadium site.

The team says it's exploring many stadium options.

Matt, this is a talker, 12 of 32 NFL teams already play outside of their central city.

The Bears are contemplating a move, so that would be yet another one.

This isn't necessarily a move to Baltimore kind of thing, but on the other hand, there are a lot of people that are very concerned that the Browns would move out of the central city.

- Yeah, you know, we don't have, there was a response after this story from the city where city officials said that they had come up with a sort of a funding package for the Browns for the Haslams to presumably renovate the stadium in the city.

And we don't know what's in that, but it appears that it might not be enough or it might not be exactly what the Haslams were hoping to see.

I know that the city is, you know, trying to keep them here, but there's also been a lot of talk that so many people outside of the city kind of come and use the stadium and are Browns fans and other municipalities maybe should have a bit more skin in the game for whatever happens with the stadium.

And so moving it out where it becomes more of a county responsibility might also make sense.

- Yeah, when you look at stadium funding proposals, they don't do well by voters in the city.

They're usually passed beyond the city in Cuyahoga County.

Ed sends us an email saying, "Cleveland should let the Browns go to Brook Park and get serious about free green space for all on the lake."

And that's an interesting point, because Mayor Justin Bibb has said it's a priority.

His chief of staff or top consultant Bradford Davy said yesterday, "It's a top priority.

We want to keep the Browns here."

He actually is the chief of staff, but many would say if the mayor let the Browns leave Downtown Cleveland and his votes are Cleveland votes, he might actually do better as a result of that.

- Yeah, that's a very interesting point.

You know, I mean, it's not like the Guardians Or the Cavs who play dozens of games every year in Downtown.

This is eight games a year.

And so, you know, that stadium sits empty most of the time and a lot of people would not notice the loss of sort of activity that one day a week when they are playing.

- There's a number of sites the Browns have said they're looking at, they're doing their diligence, to some degree this is how negotiations happen, right?

We could go here, we could go there.

It's not like we're gonna move out of town, but we, we might move out of Downtown.

The Browns have been part of the effort to get that land bridge.

Now we see that $20 million coming and the push for that, the land bridge is really about this, right?

It's essentially about developing the lakefront, but it's developing the lakefront in a way that makes it enticing to the Browns to renovate or build new where they are.

- Yeah, that's an interesting point.

I'm not sure that it is.

I know that there are plans to build up, you know, basically a neighborhood on the land owned by the Port of Cleveland that's right around the stadium.

And you know, then the people who run the Rock Hall of Fame and the science center down there would argue that there's plenty of reason to have a land bridge without the Browns.

And then, you know, throwing the fact that not many sober people are strolling down to the lakefront during football season.

You know, the time when that land bridge would be used would be during the off season mostly.

So, you know, there are lots of reasons to have a land bridge besides the Browns down there.

(upbeat music) - The City of Akron will pay $747,000 to protestors arrested during demonstrations following the police shooting death of Jayland Walker in 2022.

What did the plaintiffs allege in their lawsuits against the city, Anna?

- They basically say that police responded in a way that infringed on their constitutional right to protest, but also used unlawful force.

So, in some cases, plaintiffs described being actually physically hurt by police during the response.

There was a curfew put on by the City of Akron at the time.

And so they said that infringed on their right to protest.

The lawyer that I talked to, Elizabeth Bonham said that people were just rising to express, you know, their disappointment and their sadness in the days following Jayland Walker's death, - The new mayor, Shammas Malik said the city decided it was financially prudent to settle.

Not all the plaintiffs though are in the settlements,/\ there's still more to come.

- Yeah, this is actually, so 24 people sued, this settlement involves 22 of them.

The remaining two people also brought forth a suit against, it was University of Akron police who had responded, so that one still hasn't been resolved yet.

But the universe, or excuse me, the City of Akron police officers, that one has been settled.

But yes, the new mayor, Shammas Malik basically said, "We didn't wanna waste taxpayer money to continue litigating this."

And they just felt it was better to just go ahead and settle.

- And there are other suits that are still outstanding.

I'm thinking of the protests that happened after the grand jury decided not to indict people who were pepper sprayed and those types of things.

So, there's more to come.

- There's that one.

And with that one, the same attorney Bonham is involved in that one.

She said with that one they're actually looking for policy reform, rather than some sort of financial compensation.

And of course, there's the big one, which is the family of Jayland Walker has sued the city.

And so that one is still ongoing as well.

(upbeat music) - Cleveland Mayor Justin Bibb's proposal for a special taxing district to spur Downtown development is projected by his administration to bring in 3.3 to $7.5 billion over 42 years.

But counsel says for it to get approval, half of the proceeds need to be directed at Cleveland's neighborhoods.

Apparently Bibb's Shore-to-Core-to-Shore plan has to include more to get council support, Matt?

- Yeah, and you know, this is another one of those things that's been going on for years is the sense that all the funding gets concentrated Downtown.

And this is some of the biggest numbers that, you know, I've seen in five, six years here.

And council is kind of putting its foot down saying, "Okay, if you're gonna be dealing with numbers this big, we need guarantees that it's going to go out to the rest of the city, to all the neighborhoods."

- And the city has basically said, "No, this money is for making sure that Downtown projects are paid for, that that will have a great effect on the neighborhoods.

And also we would use some of that money for parks in neighborhoods and rec centers."

And Griffin is saying, "No, we're not just talking about parks and rec centers, we're talking about actual major development in these suburbs.

I mean, in these neighborhoods."

- Yeah, and I think also, you know, to give council some authority over.

So, you know, if if the mayor says, "We're limiting it to these targets," then that takes it outta council's hand.

And so I think they wanna broaden the possible uses of all this money.

- And council has to approve.

- Yeah, yeah, there's gonna be some long hearings about this.

(upbeat music) - Ohio lawmakers have again proposed a cap on insulin costs for all, not just those on Medicare.

Karen, there are bipartisan bills in each chamber, the House version goes even further though.

- Yeah, the House version would also cover things like test strips and pumps, glucometers, all that kind of stuff, and cap those costs at $35.

And then there are also some non-prescription kits that the cost be capped at $100.

And so, this is not the first time that this has been proposed.

In fact, in the last two legislative sessions, bills have been proposed to deal with the price of insulin.

And in the last session before this one and this one, these were bipartisan bills.

So it's, I think for a lot of people there's about a million Ohioans who are dependent on insulin.

This is a big deal for them.

And the question is whether the legislature will move on this.

- Does the $35 cap, is that per vial of insulin?

Is it per subscription, do we know?

- I think it's intended to be per prescription, but I think those are some of the details of the bill that we're still finding out.

Each time these bills are proposed there's a little bit more detail.

And what I think is interesting is that a lot of the bills, a lot of time the bills are proposed by people who actually are, have diabetes, that are insulin dependent.

And so that certainly helps the process, I would think.

- Yeah, as an insulin-dependent diabetic, I am, you know, very grateful that I have the insurance I have.

I just can't imagine people who are paying these exorbitant prices.

And by the way, you'll pay everything you have, if you don't have the insulin you're not living.

(upbeat music) Super Bowl 58 will be decided Sunday in Las Vegas between the San Francisco 49ers and the Kansas City Chiefs.

For those not interested in football, there's always the commercials.

The Browns won't be playing this Sunday, but the team cleaned up in year end League awards.

Kevin Stefanski was coach of the year.

Defensive coordinator Jim Schwartz was the assistant coach of the year.

Myles Garrett is the defensive player of the year.

And Joe Flacco claimed the Comeback Player of the Year award, a great showing for the Browns in the city, but still no Lombardi trophy, Karen, I'd give all that up for maybe a chance to play in this game Sunday.

- No kidding, but I mean really, seriously, last night was great.

It was great to see Myles Garrett get that recognition as well as our coaches.

And I mean, Joe Flacco, who had a better comeback story?

I know a lot of people wanted to see Damar Hamlin because of what happened to him, the heart incident on the field.

But God, Flacco was just amazing, wasn't he?

And it's so weird to say that.

(laughs) - Baker Mayfield had a heck of a comeback year too.

- Ooh, do we wanna talk about that?

- We do, we do.

We have nothing against Baker Mayfield.

It was a business decision, I guess, but yeah, he was great too.

But yeah, it was really cool to see everybody that kind of was up for an award for the Browns got one.

Now we've get to the Super Bowl, and many of us who wanna watch it wanna watch for the game, but all of us also wanna watch it for the commercials.

That's what it's all about.

- [Karen] Oh yeah.

- And we'll talk about a commercial that's gonna be in the Super Bowl, but it turns out that Destination Cleveland is gonna launch a new tourism campaign.

And for a while I think they're making people think it was Super Bowl.

They were saying it's on the big sports day.

Turns out it's for the Puppy Bowl.

- [Anna] woof.

- Which is cool.

- Yeah.

- But it's not quite exactly the same thing.

But according to their release, the ad will feature the land through the eyes of a dog.

- I mean, I think that's pretty cool.

- That is neat.

I mean, I can imagine, obviously we haven't seen it yet, but I can imagine it's probably gonna showcase some of the wonderful outdoorsy things you can do in Cleveland.

You can take your dog, and I would love to see Cleveland through the eyes of a cat, speaking from personal experience.

- [Mike] I'm a dog guy, we can see it through a dog.

- Probably just all over the walls, all over the ceiling of the house.

That's just my experience.

- It's funny, I remember long ago hearing from a advocate of Cleveland who said he was excited when he stepped in a pile of dog droppings, because it meant that there was people living in Cleveland again- - [Anna] Oh, oh.

- In Downtown Cleveland.

And now we're having commercials for dogs.

So, you would step in a pile of dog droppings- - And smile.

- Yes.

- Yes, exactly.

(everyone laughs) (upbeat music) Be sure to check out the Sound of Ideas with host Jenny Hamel next week, weekdays at 9:00 a.m. and 9:00 p.m. on 89.7 WKSU.

I'm Mike McIntyre.

Thank you so much for watching, and stay safe.

(upbeat music)