(poignant music) - Cleveland is going after landlords who have not followed the city's lead-safe law.

A state panel has delayed its decision on fracking under state parks.

And the city of Cleveland will hike parking rates as smart meters become a thing.

"Ideas" is next.

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

I'm Mike McIntyre.

Thanks for joining us.

Cleveland is getting tough with landlords who don't take steps to ensure that their properties are lead safe.

A state lawmaker says he plans to introduce a bill that would preemptively thwart a participatory budgeting proposal, making a November vote in Cleveland moot.

The commission that will decide whether state land will be open for natural gas fracking, ended a lively meeting this week by tabling proposals for Salt Fork State Park and two wildlife areas.

And Cleveland is updating its parking meters.

And with that comes increased prices for meters and city-owned lots.

Joining me for the round table, from Ideastream Public Media Abbey Marshall, from the Buckeye Flame, editor Ken Schneck, and Ohio Public Radio and State House News Bureau Chief Karen Kasler, in studio with us in Cleveland.

Let's get ready to round table.

Cleveland leaders are cracking down on landlords, especially out-of-state landlords who fail to make their properties led safe.

This week they announced charges against 50 property owners.

Abbey, let's start by discussing why this is needed.

We went back to this and had many conversations here about why lead-safe legislation was important, but the issue is not just to make a house look nicer.

- Right, Cleveland's Health Department says that they see at least 200 cases of severe lead poisoning in children each year, and that obviously has major health effects that take years to recover from, if ever.

But even if they, again, that is just the severe cases, but there are lots of other effects that it can have on children.

Low cognition, slowed growth, hearing and speech problems, that sort of thing, that can really last a lifetime.

- So the city said, okay, landlords, let's do what we can to make these, well, let's do it.

Let's make these places lead safe.

That means painting, those types of things.

There's lead paint chips that kids will eat and that's one of the things that makes them sick.

So we put this legislation in place.

Most landlords said, okay, we're gonna remediate our properties.

But some of them just ignored it.

What do they have to do to make it safe?

What kind of things do landlords need to do?

- Right so there's a certification process on lead-free certification.

Number one would be to get rid of that lead paint.

Especially when you talk about, you know, that was banned decades ago.

But when you talk about the age of Cleveland's housing stock and you think about old wooden windows, doors, places where friction happens, it can chip and expose the toxic paint.

So the best way is to hire a contractor, make sure everything's done above board.

You don't really wanna DIY this, because you're talking about people's health here.

- Right, costs a couple bucks to do that, which is what's interesting where these landlords who ignored the law, they're gonna be hauled into housing court.

And what the city's doing, and what's a little bit different is it's not just a single charge.

There's each one of them is facing 75 counts, first degree misdemeanors could be a thousand dollars per.

When you add that up, what the city is saying is it should be more expensive than remediating.

'Cause right now it's just a business proposition.

Okay, if I ignore it, it will cost me a little bit in court fees.

If I do it, it's gonna cost me, I don't know, $30,000, whatever the number is.

They wanna make it more expensive to not do it.

- Right, it's certainly sending a message to people.

And I think that another important part of this too is when you look at the rental registry in Cleveland, you are supposed to, if you are a landlord, register your property as a rental.

The estimation is that there's, at least by what the city says, at least a hundred thousand rental units in the city.

But there's only records of about 61,000.

And that again, helps the city track who's renting these properties, are they safe for people?

And that's just not really happening.

So there's a lot happening in terms of how to hold these landlords accountable and make housing more safe for residents.

- And one of the things the city has done in recent months is to ramp up code enforcement.

They hired a chief of code enforcement.

They've got a team of assistant prosecutors.

They're getting moving.

- Mm hm, and there's a new ordinance coming through called the Residents First Housing Reform Agenda, which will basically revise that rental registry code that I'm talking about, which is severely lacking.

'Cause like I said, it's almost half the property owners aren't using, at least estimated.

It'll also require that there's someone local, physically in Cuyahoga County, that will be legally responsible for the property's physical and financial conditions.

So that's been a big point for a lot of local officials, is that some of these property owners don't live even in Ohio.

So it's really unclear who is in charge of these properties.

- Yeah, that seems like a big deal.

If you recall a former councilman, Tony Brancatelli, who was big on these issues, was on the cover of the New York Times.

He actually called into the show yesterday on a different topic.

But, one of the biggest frustrations is absentee landlords.

You can send an email to a place that would pile up.

There's no one there, you don't know their addresses.

They're an LLC.

So the idea that someone locally, physically has to be responsible would be a game changer, it sounds like.

- Absolutely, yeah.

(dramatic music) - Akron City Council, responding to shootings in parks over the summer, including one that injured a seven year old at a youth football game, is considering a requirement that police be present for all events.

Ken, one obstacle for council is that there's not enough police officers to provide the security for every community event.

So if you say you have to have a police officer in order to have a peewee football game, and you don't have any officers, you don't have a game.

- Right, and so, part of what the city council needs to work out, because one of the many obstacles was a lack of clarity about when would police officers even be required?

Is it for all events that involve youth?

Is it for all major events?

And as you said, the Akron Police Department, they point blank said, we are understaffed.

And so patrolling hundreds of community events each year is just not feasible.

So they're trying to come up with some alternative ideas, including having private security, but they're still not sure exactly what types of events they would require law enforcement presence at.

So they have to figure that out first.

- Hmm, and Abbey, consideration for extra security comes as the city and its police force are still dealing with the aftermath of the Jayland Walker shooting, the need to rebuild trust.

- Right, and like we've talked about many times on this program, it's this push and pull, right?

I think everyone agrees they want more safety, less gun violence.

But the question is how to do that?

A lot of elected officials and residents will jump to, well, more police, more police, more police.

But others point out that that is reactionary, not necessarily preventative.

And understandably so, between the black community and Akron's Police Department at the events of the last year, there is some tension and some distrust.

So it's a question of if that will make people feel safer or not, because for some people it just won't.

(solemn music) - Debate over the participatory budgeting issue on the November ballot in Cleveland is heating up, just as a state lawmaker says he'll introduce a bill to thwart the measure and others like it.

Meanwhile, city council proposed and then polled an ordinance that would allow the city to use public dollars to oppose efforts such as participatory budgeting, Cleveland, or PB CLE, that ballot measure.

And a state legislator is now getting involved too, looking to pass a measure blocking participatory budgeting.

As Marlene Martin said on the show the other day, sounds like we're doing something right, if everybody's getting all, you're nodding your head over there, Ken, what she said, which was basically, wait a minute, now we have the state legislators and the council, and everyone's hair's on fire.

- Yeah, to quote "Mean Girls," you don't even go here.

To have a state legislator who has no authority, right, who this is not his district, gets so intimately involved in this, and proactively, is significant.

- So let's just step back for a second.

What is participatory budgeting?

You wrote a great explainer last month on that.

- Yeah.

Participatory budgeting is basically when you give a portion of the budget to the citizens, and they get to decide, they get to propose projects, programming, and they get to decide how that money is spent.

So there was a proposed pilot program here in Cleveland that would use some of the federal stimulus dollars earlier this year, that council killed.

And so when that died on the floor, they basically said, let's codify it in the city's charter.

So they collected signatures and they basically made it up for the vote in November.

So this specific charter amendment would give 2% of the city's general fund to Clevelanders to decide how it's spent, which is, again, $14 million.

- So what we heard in this debate from the council members is, that's gonna put a huge hole in the budget.

It means layoffs for safety forces, all of these types of things.

But it doesn't necessarily mean those things wouldn't be funded.

It's just the way the citizens might decide how the money is spent.

Is it necessarily money that goes away to something else, or it's something that is a consensus about how it's spent?

- So there is some debate between the folks organizing this participatory budgeting and council on where that money would come from.

PB CLE, which is the grassroots organizing coalition that organized this whole thing, says that some of that money can come not just from the general fund, but from other funding sources, which the general fund is what funds police, fire, all of these departments.

And so the city says when they point to, we would have to slash you know, the Department of Aging, or the Public Health Department, or whatever, PB CLE says that that's a scare tactic, that wouldn't necessarily happen.

But again, it's kind of unclear between the back and forth of where this money would actually come from.

- This debate next week ought to be a barn burner, because the show that we had this week was, and clearly there's people are in, you know, very high temperatures on this issue.

One of the developments this week that I just teased to, that I want to talk about, is this legislation, 53 words, that basically said we can use city money to fight this kind of thing.

I think everyone was kind of surprised when they saw that on the agenda.

- Yeah, and there was a lot of finger pointing between council and mayor Bibb's administration on who put this fourth, because council said it wasn't us, it came from the city's law department.

And when I talked to the city, they said it did not.

So it's again, unclear, I mean they're all opposed to it.

Mayor Justin Bibb, who did back the original proposed pilot program in January, has come forth and said he does not support this as a charter amendment in a permanent measure in the city.

So, - He supports neither the charter amendment nor spending money to fight the charter amendment.

- Correct, correct.

But now council is saying that they also don't support that.

So where did this come from?

- Yeah, it had the council president's name on it, so.

- Right, 'cause he chairs the committee that it would've gone through, but it was put up to be proposed Monday night, and also passed Monday night.

So it would've been a very swift action.

And they pulled it just a few hours before.

- Ken, either you're just watching with your mouth open, or you're about to say something.

- No, I just am fascinated that we can't seem to locate who actually put forward this legislation.

But you have council folks like Rebecca Moore of Ward 12, who, she was pretty upfront in saying, this is a pure power grab that undermines public trust.

I'm appalled.

- Right.

- The fact that we can't seem to locate, hey, who proposed this, is fascinating to me.

- Yeah, and Moore, by the way, with someone who was in support of the PB CLE measure now is not in support of that particular legislation.

There are some that supported the pilot program, but don't support this.

There's just all kinds of moving parts on who's going to control the city's budget.

- And another piece of that charter amendment would've been that it would have refunded retroactively, which implied, wait, has money already been spent on the city council side - Exactly.

- to fight against this?

But who knows?

Because we don't even know who proposed it.

- Right, we've been getting emails, press releases from city council itself saying, you know, this is what would happen if this were to go through.

Which again, was what PB CLE called the scare tactics of we're gonna slash departments, there's gonna be major layoffs to police, fire, EMS, which again, has now prompted this whole, all of the unions are coming together now too, to oppose this as well.

So you have unions representing EMS, police, building and housing, building and construction, that are saying, we don't want this, because we're worried about how it could potentially affect us if every department has to slash 2% across the board, or whether it just affects certain departments, we don't know yet.

- Meanwhile, state senator Jerry Cirino, who does not represent Cleveland, Karen, is looking to make this whole thing moot.

- Yeah, and he said he's heard from those labor unions that Abbey just mentioned as being one of the reasons that he wants to get involved.

He says he's concerned about if the city does this, it could set a precedent for other cities to do this.

But to Ken's point at the beginning of this conversation, he does not represent the city of Cleveland.

So it's interesting to see him getting involved, though again, he feels that this could be something that could spread across the rest of the state.

- So by getting involved, he's presenting legislation.

It's one of those kinds of things where you can't go through the normal process.

By the time it went into effect, the election would've happened, so, - Sure.

what needs to happen with Jerry Cirino's idea?

- Well, I think some of it right now may be putting it out there and making it a public thing.

And because, I mean, he's talking about dropping it on Tuesday, first hearing on Wednesday.

So yeah, there's no way that it could be in place by the time this election would happen.

So perhaps it's just an awareness thing.

Maybe it's, he wants to put it out there so it's almost as a warning to other cities.

I don't know.

I hope to talk to Senator Cirino today about that.

- And I'd be curious to hear, in some of the comments that he made to other outlets, he seemed really confident - Yeah.

- in his timeline, in being able to do something before the election.

But as you just said, that doesn't really match up.

- Yeah, they're, I mean, they're kind of on break, so to speak.

I mean, they've officially, I guess, come back after the summer break, but right now a lot of the attention at the State House is on this upcoming November election statewide, where you've got Issue One and Issue Two, the reproductive rights amendment, and then the marijuana legalization statute.

So that's where a lot of attention's going.

- I think it would be interesting to find out if there are emails that are between the law department and the city council, it might be a good time to put it together, a public records request.

And let's see who knows what.

- [Karen] You're reading my mind.

- Well, and between the city council and Senator Cirino, I'd be curious.

It's interesting to hear that maybe it was the labor unions that tipped him off.

I would also be curious to see, through a public records request, if he's heard from Cleveland officials.

- Can you just make an official public records request on a radio show?

City of Cleveland?

- I feel like we just did.

- If anyone's listening.

- City council?

We would like records, please.

- And I wanna point out for people that live in Cleveland that have the ability to vote on this in November, it is issue 38.

- Okay.

- Just when you go to the ballot.

- Issue 38, and we'll obviously continue to cover that prior to the election, as well as those statewide issues that you've mentioned.

- November's gonna be an amazing election.

- It's gonna be amazing.

- Especially for a quote, "off year."

It's gonna be incredible.

- And that's at the state level, - Yeah.

- Cleveland level.

There's a Canton mayoral race.

- Yep.

- There is a huge race for school board in Akron, both of which Ideastream's gonna be involved in, with some pre-debate forums, and also the marijuana issue, which we're also working on, the abortion issue, which I think something that statewide, we're gonna be looking at a forum on that, trying to educate people on it.

But you're right, there's so much on the ballot.

- There are no off-year elections.

- Never.

- Never.

(somber music) - The Ohio Oil and Gas Land Management Commission this week postponed a decision on whether to allow drillers to seek natural gas under state parks.

Karen, while the panel tabled the decision on drilling in the parks for now, it did vote to allow companies to bid on leases for parcels of land owned by the Ohio Department of Transportation.

- Yeah, these are rights of way that ODOT owns, that I guess there is some interest in trying to find out if there's oil and gas underneath there.

But they did table those, the more controversial proposals, which would allow for the drilling in those state parks and wildlife areas.

- So I guess it would be a victory for those who don't want there to be fracking there.

But it may be short lived, it's just tabling for now.

- Right, and some of the people who, and this was a huge meeting.

I've been to one of these meetings before, and it's usually sparsely attended.

This one, there was a line of cars to get in.

People came with signs, people came in costumes.

- [Mike] Costumes?

- Yes, there was a woman dressed as Mother Nature, who had this big green dress with all these little stuffed animals all over it.

One of the most prominent advocates wears a Mad Hatter hat.

So yeah, there's some costuming going on here, but the, the group says, in general, they don't want any of this happening on state lands.

They don't want drilling, and especially fracking, happening on state lands.

And the the fracking question, of course is, you know, if you are outside the state park and you get the permit to drill and frack, you could go under the state park.

And that's a real concern for folks who say they're worried about the environmental impact, and also the impact on people who use those state parks and enjoy hiking, and all the other activities that go on in state parks.

- The panel listened to all of these protestors and folks that don't want that, but, but gave the impression that it, and suggested that it really doesn't have the power to say no.

- Right, there was a public comment period that has already closed, and they said they've seen the public comments.

They know these people are pretty clear on what they want.

They come with signs saying, "ban fracking."

They're pretty clear on what they want.

And the commission, apparently, the state law makes it clear that this is going to happen.

That it's now a matter of the language that changed in December of last year, changed from the state may allow this to shall allow this.

So this is going to go forward.

It's just a question of who's gonna get the bids.

And we don't even know at this point, because part of the law shields the names of the companies that are bidding on this until the final outcome.

- Hmm.

We also talked extensively last week about the fraudulent letters that were sent to this commission saying, Hey, we're all for fracking.

You should allow this to happen.

They were signed by people who were tracked down by a number of journalists, now, in fact, Ideastream's working on its own story locally.

But a number of people who said, I didn't, I didn't sign that, that wasn't me.

That's something still that the Attorney General is now looking into, where do we stand on that?

- Yeah, Jake Zuckerman at Cleveland.com was the first to report that.

And other people have been reporting it as well.

And it's really fascinating and also a little bit scary when you think about it.

Could your name be attached to something that's sent off, that you don't even know that your name is attached to it, and you may be completely opposed to it?

And the commission chair was asked about that, and she said as soon as she was aware that that was happening, it was turned over for further investigation, which is now at the Ohio Attorney General's office.

And so we're still waiting to hear what happens with that.

But it's got to be incredibly frustrating to hear that your name, your nine year old child, that's one of the people whose names was attached.

How did your name get put into this pile of names that are endorsing drilling and even fracking on state lands and state parks?

(somber music) - The Ohio Redistricting Commission finally met this week and adopted maps drawn by the GOP that would give Republicans a majority in both chambers.

Now they take their show on the road.

Karen, how much do the two parties work together to create those maps?

- Oh, there's still some bickering.

We got two maps this week.

The bickering started in this committee, at this commission meeting over the rules.

I mean, this is government.

This is government how it works, where you have to have co-chairs and you have to have rules, and all this stuff.

And so when the participants start bickering over the rules, then it really starts to feel like we're getting lost in the weeds here.

But these are important moments, procedural moments to move forward.

And so they couldn't agree on the rules, but they decided to go ahead and set the meetings.

And that caused some problems because the three meetings, one is happening this morning at Deer Creek State Park, which is in southern Ohio.

On Monday, the next meeting is at Punderson State Park in Geauga County.

And then the third meeting on Tuesday is at the Ohio State House.

And Democrats said that didn't give urban voters enough of an opportunity to really come in and weigh in on this.

So there was a little bit of back and forth on that.

And then Democrats proposed their maps, Republicans proposed their maps, Republicans' maps were the ones that were selected to be the ones that they're gonna work from to create the final maps.

- So it wasn't blended in the first place.

- No.

- It's ours, yours, we'll pick ours, - Yeah.

- and then we'll talk about it after the fact.

- That's yes.

Now could it be closer to a compromise in the end?

Of course.

But the working maps that they're going from are ones that give, I think, a 62% advantage to Republicans in the House, and a 69% advantage to Republicans in the Senate.

- And that's not close to 50-50.

Is that what it's supposed to be?

- Well, that's another question.

Certainly Republicans will say, hey, look at what the votes have been in the last couple of election cycles.

It hasn't been 50-50.

I mean, Donald Trump won Ohio twice by more than by around eight points.

Mike DeWine won decisively over Nan Whaley.

These are examples, according to Republicans, of how voters feel.

But there certainly could be the argument that that's not representative.

That there's, the election data is really what's important here.

And and that's what we have been told is available, and gonna be looked at.

- Tight deadline.

- Yeah, the deadline, Secretary of State Frank LaRose, who is a member of the commission, had said he wanted those maps approved by today.

So that would give everybody time to prepare ballots, because we have a March primary coming up, because it's a presidential election year coming up.

It's not a May primary, it's a March primary.

So you've got the deadline of December 20th where candidates have to file.

That means they have to be living in their districts by November 20th, which means there's gonna be lawsuits and all this.

So he had said this Friday, but the actual drop-dead, cannot-move deadline apparently is October 23rd.

And that looks like the one that they're gonna go for.

- Okay.

Governor DeWine wasn't at the meeting that he convened or called because he has Covid.

- Yes, and we found that out.

It was interesting.

I was at a press conference with him a couple days before, and just to be fair, he was standing way up in front of the room, and I was in the audience, so it wasn't like we were close, but he just seemed off.

He's usually a little bit friendlier.

And that day he just seemed off.

And now I guess we know why, he wasn't feeling very well.

(somber music) - Cleveland will hike parking rates, including for tailgating at the Muni lot.

The increased revenue will pay for modernization, including meters that could be fed with credit card or phone payments rather than coins.

Abbey, Councilman Carey McCormick said, these increases are needed.

- Right, so Mayor Justin Bibb's administration put this forth after a study came out that looked at Cleveland and its peer cities, and realized Cleveland actually has a much lower parking rate than some of its peer cities.

And when you talk about modernizing Cleveland's parking system, like you're saying, credit card enabled meters, these smart parking apps, which Cleveland's really behind a lot of other cities on this.

I moved here from Akron, where I was able to pay with an app, and a lot of people just don't carry coins anymore.

And that's the case when Carrie told me that a lot of his constituents say, I just don't go downtown because I don't have quarters, and I don't wanna have to deal with the parking.

So this effort will be used to fund the modernization.

So parking isn't such a big headache.

- It might cost though, at peak times, up to eight bucks an hour for a meter downtown.

That's the max that the mayor could set it at, the minimum being a buck.

Right now it's 50 cents, or a dollar an hour.

So it's a big change.

- Right, Cleveland City Council approved this as a cap, so we don't actually know what those prices will look like yet.

It is set by the mayor.

And part of this too, is this idea of dynamic pricing, where if there's special events happening, they can go on the higher end.

If there's not, then they can go on the lower end.

So it really leaves the discretion up to the mayor.

But these are again, maximums.

It's not like you're gonna go downtown and have to pay $8 an hour.

- And the same with city-owned parking lots.

Those are generally a lot cheaper than the privately owned lots.

They're gonna be hiked a little bit too, in order to become closer in line.

- Correct, and so the rates for those were released.

I have them on my story online for the Willard Park garage, which is the one behind City Council, the Muni lot, and the Canal Basin lot.

The city says that they will put out additional pricing for other city-owned lots as well as street parking soon.

- Ken, it's gonna go from 30 bucks to 50 bucks to tailgate at the Muni lot.

That's one case of Miller Lite, which is by the way, illegal in the Muni lot.

You're not allowed to drink in there, apparently.

- And that never happens, right?

- Never happens.

We'll find out on Saturday night.

Sunday morning.

- I have about 40 questions on the one sentence that you just gave me.

(all laughing) - I'm saying, will 20 bucks dissuade anybody?

Apparently not.

- Well, actually, the Browns game day parking is $40 per space, but the cap is 50.

- Gotcha.

- So again, things can fluctuate.

- Even cheaper.

Yeah, so there you go.

- That's a case of like Schaefer or Goebel or something.

(somber music) Monday on "The Sound of Ideas" on 89.7 WKSU, we'll discuss the new Akron Civic Commons project, and how it hopes to showcase Akron's existing assets.

I'm Mike McIntyre.

Thank you so much for watching, and stay safe.

(contemplative music) (synth music)