- [McIntyre] Frank Jackson, the longest serving mayor in Cleveland's history, will not seek a historic fifth term.

He is departing, he said, haunted by the problems he could not solve, including deep rooted inequalities in the city.

Vaccination demand has slowed as the governor now is pushing for children to be vaccinated in Ohio.

And the legislature has proposed a new bill targeting distracted driving.

There's a certain Ohio Senator it seems who should study up on that one.

"Ideas" is next.

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(dramatic music) - Hello, and welcome to "Ideas," I'm Mike MacIntyre.

Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson will not run for reelection, exiting city hall at the end of this year after 16 years as the city's chief executive.

There were already a number of candidates lined up to take his spot, and two more jumped in this week.

A federal judge vacates the Center for Disease Control and Prevention's national moratorium on evictions, saying the CDC overstepped its authority imposing it.

How will that impact than many renters and landlords in Northeast Ohio?

And have vaccines played themselves out?

hesitancy in rural areas of the state threaten the concept of herd immunity.

With me to discuss these stories and more, Ideastream local government and politics reporter Nick Castele, health reporter Anna Huntsman, and statehouse news bureau Chief Karen Kasler.

Let's get ready to round table.

After 32 years in elected office, half of them as mayor of Cleveland, Frank Jackson announced last night he will not seek a historic fifth term at the helm of the city.

- Now I'm honored to hold the office of Mayor but I'm here to share with you today that I've decided not to seek reelection for a fifth term.

- That decision was not unexpected, as Jackson had been quiet about his intentions and he wasn't raising money for a campaign while many others declared their intentions to run.

The mayor talked during a tele-town hall last night about what he accomplished as mayor - For 16 years, I have worked to stabilize this city, position this city for the future, and to ensure that all can participate in the prosperity and the quality of life that we've created.

- He also spent some time talking about the things he did not accomplish, work that remains unfinished and which haunts him.

- Because I know that with all of my efforts and with everything I have accomplished, it has not been enough.

- His decision, as I said, was not unexpected.

A bevy of candidates are already lined-up to replace the mayor.

Jumping in this week, Ward seven Councilman Bashir Jones and State Senator Sandra Williams.

They joined already in the campaign, nonprofit executive Justin Bibb, Cleveland City Council President Kevin Kelley, former Councilman Zack Reed, and several others.

Nick, let's start with the mayor's announcement last night.

Not at all a surprise.

- No, I think, I think we all saw this coming.

City Hall had been advertising for a couple of weeks that he was going to be making a big and special announcement.

And you know, if it was going to be a an announcement that he was running for a fifth term, he wouldn't have done it from City Hall.

He would have done it from his, from his campaign.

And so it seemed pretty evident that we were heading toward an announcement that he would not be seeking a fifth term.

The mayor had been sort of coy about it for several months.

And what he said previously was, that if he said he was running, everything he did would be politicized.

And if he said he wasn't running, he wouldn't be able to get a phone call back.

He may be still will be able to get phone calls back even though he says he's not going to run because he did not endorse a successor during this event last night, he said he's going to evaluate the candidates and hinted that he would make a decision down the road.

- Let me ask you this.

If he had run, what do you have won?

- I don't know.

I mean, that's definitely an open question.

He sailed to reelection in all of his past bids but he really did not face, I think fields of opponents that would have been as challenging as this one with a number of people with some substantial name recognition like Dennis Kucinich who's considering a bid or people with a lot of financial resources like Council President Kevin Kelley.

So if the Mayor had run, this would have been pretty tough.

And you know, after 16 years in office, you know it might be a pretty compelling campaign message to say it's time to time to change.

- You mentioned a couple of big names, Dennis Kucinich who has not yet jumped into the race.

Many people expect that he will, he's been raising money, it's told.

So we have that, Council President Kevin Kelley as you mentioned, also Zach Reed, a former Councilman.

Justin Bibb, who is a nonprofit executive, who I've seen a lot of, a lot of buzz about on social media.

A number of other contenders that may be new to voters as well.

Would any of them have run?

Some of them obviously would have, but would they have gotten in had they thought the mayor was going to stand for reelection?

- You know I, it's a good question.

Some might not have taken the risk of potentially losing the seat they were holding.

I mean, you know, Council President Kevin Kelley announced his intentions to to run pretty early on this year.

And he was even raising money last year for what sure seemed like a, you know, a pretty significant bid this year.

And so I think he was in the race and at least had told me he wasn't sure what Jackson was going to do.

you know State Senator Sandra Williams, maybe she wouldn't have gotten in if Jackson was going to run.

It's hard for me to say, but certainly Jackson's absence in this race makes it much more enticing for candidates, because they don't have to overcome the challenge of unseating an incumbent, which can be pretty difficult.

- Do you need his blessing?

And if that's the case or isn't, has the mayor said anything about who he might favor?

- Well, so far he hasn't.

You know, this was, the town hall last night was not with reporters really, although we could tune in.

It was with Cleveland residents.

The mayor had always said that he wanted to go to the people first to say what his decision would be.

And so, you know, some people did call in though and try to get some news out of him.

They asked him, you know, who he was going to endorse.

He didn't make an endorsement.

He said, he's going to take a look at this field.

He said, he wants to see essentially who's serious and who's just talking; you know, what exactly that means you know, we can only kind of guess at.

It's one of Frank Jackson's many riddles, but you know, we'll see maybe later this year whether he does weigh in and make an endorsement - Anna Huntsman, what about the health department?

We've had many stories here about the turmoil there, the turnover, that continues.

And now as the mayor will exit at the end of the year, what does that portend?

- You know, there was some turmoil there, some HR issues, some issues with a hostile work environment, things like that.

And the solution was to kind of demote the previous director of the department, Merle Gordon.

She's doing some community health things now, and they have reorganized this department to be under the office of Prevention, Intervention and Youth Violence I believe it is, which is kind of targeting, you know, crime on the streets of, you know, younger kids and neighborhoods and things like that.

But the whole health department is now under this.

So this is very kind of a unique way to organize a health department.

We don't know of any any other cities doing something like this.

And so I'm curious to see how that will continue once he's gone and there's a new mayor.

I wonder if the new mayor will want to do something different and kind of reorganize it again or if this is here to stay and we'll have to continue watching to see what happens with this.

But I do think it's something to watch.

- I do want to note, there was a lot of turmoil before Merle Gordon came into the health department as well.

So it didn't start necessarily then.

Also you're lucky you weren't seeking any public records, because that you will, you will still be waiting, for 16 years later right?.

- [Castele] And maybe sometimes.

- I want to note one last thing about the Cleveland mayoral race.

And that is, you know, obviously this is going to be one of the biggest elections in in the last two decades in Cleveland.

And one that I think the public really needs to know the details about who these candidates are.

I mentioned some of them, but there are a couple of others too, Nick, that are names people might not have heard.

Attorney Ross DiBello, there's Dick Noth.

So a number of other names that are running too.

- Yeah.

There's a lot of people.

Now, this is still early on in the campaign season and there's a big hurdle that all of these candidates have got to get over, and that is getting 3000 valid signatures to get on the ballot.

It's a higher requirement than in other peer cities in Ohio like Columbus or Cincinnati.

And so some candidates are probably not going to make the cut and some that have more resources could potentially pay a firm to help them out or pay canvassers to do some of that work, will have advantages there.

And so we will see this field winnow somewhat in the middle of June when we hit that filing deadline.

And then we'll have a really good sense of who will be on the ballot and who is really contending for people's votes in the September primary.

(dramatic music) - Vaccination demand is on the downturn in Ohio.

Has everyone who wants a vaccine gotten one?

There are efforts to bring vaccines into communities and combat disinformation in rural areas.

Yet many are hesitant, threatening the prospects of herd immunity.

Anna, you reported this week about rural communities being hesitant to the vaccines.

- Right, and nationwide, what we're seeing is this is a trend; health officials are struggling to reach rural communities and people who live in rural communities oftentimes are the ones who are not as interested in getting the vaccine.

And there's a lot of reasons behind this so far.

One is just disinterest, actually, not even wanting to consider the vaccine.

People are hearing that they've feel that they're healthy and there's some misconceptions about natural immunity to COVID.

So we know that if you've had a previous COVID infection, you are pretty protected against another one but we don't know for how long, we think it's a pretty short period of time.

So there's, you know, some misconceptions there but there's also a lot of fear and lack of information.

Fear of the side effects, not knowing the long-term effects of the vaccines but also some other misconceptions about this belief that the vaccine may cause infertility, for example.

So health officials in some rural areas of Northeast Ohio are trying to put together some campaigns to kind of target those specific concepts because they're trying to educate people, and to be frank, I mean, these are views that you might see on your social media feed.

I mean, it's not just people who live in rural areas who are spreading misinformation and believing misinformation.

It's not that at all, but what health officials in Ashtabula County told me is when you are in a more rural community, it's harder to spread the word about the truth and the facts.

And, you know people believe who they're around and it's, you know, you have to make that personal connection with people, which is harder to do when you're in these, you know, spread out, sometimes isolated areas.

So that's why it's been a little bit harder to get people on board that are in rural areas.

But again, this is a national trend.

I think there's a poll out there that said three in 10 rural residents said they will not get the vaccine unless it's mandated.

I think that's an NPR poll.

So it's not just around here, but it is a problem.

I mean, you'll look at the Southern Northeast Ohio counties.

Tuscarora, Wayne, Holmes, definitely on the lower end of vaccination rates when you look at all of the counties in the state.

- And what role does the presence of the Amish community play in that?

You mentioned Holmes County, you did the big report that went on NPR and was on our air and on our website as well.

But that's the lowest, Holmes County - Holmes County is at the lowest.

I believe it's 11% fully vaccinated, 13% just one dose, which is, I mean, very low compared to the statewide average of like 30%.

Yeah, so there's a huge Amish population in that part of the state.

It spans across Holmes and the surrounding counties and the Amish are resistant to vaccines in general.

They typically, you know, I've heard this from experts who study these populations not as they don't feel like it's as important, it's kind of you know, I'll get sick and whatever happens happens.

So oftentimes they, health officials struggle to get them on board with other vaccines that many of us get.

But with COVID specifically, there seems to be some misinformation in the Holmes County Amish community, specifically.

Also some conspiracy theories went through about it not being Biblical, Mark of the Beast, that type of thing, kind of targeting the Amish populations.

But what people who are closely tied to the community have told me is it's less about that and more just this belief that, well, I already had it, I'm fine.

You know, it's God's will, whatever happens happens.

And again, that misinformation I was talking about earlier you know, we don't know the long-term effects, infertility, things like that.

So that is, it is a part of it in those places that do have Amish and the ones that are getting the vaccine are very private about it and not speaking up, they don't want people to know that they got it.

And, you know, I spoke to someone who's Mennonite and he's closely tied to the community.

And he said that people just really need to be open about it, talk about the fact that you got the vaccine and you know, I'm fine, I got it, you know, this, this and this.

And also what health officials are trying to do now, and it's not just what the Amish, but in these rural communities, they want to start taking vaccines to employers and try to make it more convenient for people to get the shot while they're at work.

Because they're hearing that people are not being able to take time off to go get the shot, or they don't have time to wait that 15 minutes, they got to get back to work.

So that's something that's in the works now but yeah, some, some issues happening in rural areas.

- Karen let's talk a little bit about the vaccines on a statewide level.

It's now the state of Ohio is stockpiling vaccine doses for future use?

Tell me a little bit about that.

- The state's going to have, it's going to hold on to, it's asked the federal government rather, to hold on to about 480,000 1st COVID 19 vaccine doses.

Part of the problem is that the Federal government is starting to move around its doses to try to figure out how can you get doses to the places that want it and get so that there's no waste.

And so this is interesting to watch that the state is now asking for some of this to held because there are certain parts of the state where the vaccine is just not being asked for quite as often as it is in other areas.

- And there was some news this week from the Governor's press conferences.

One, that fully vaccinated nursing home staff don't have to undergo weekly COVID-19 testing.

- Yeah, well I think that's part of his whole idea of trying to get incentives for people to get vaccinated, because this order would say that if you work in a nursing home and you have been vaccinated, you don't need to go through these weekly tests.

But if you haven't been vaccinated, you do, because you might recall a couple months back, there were a lot of stories about nursing home staff really being on the low end in terms of accepting the vaccine.

While nursing home residents were getting it in big numbers, nursing home staff were a little more reticent.

And so this is, I think potentially, an effort to try to incentivize people to say that if you get the vaccine, then you don't need to go through those tests because you've heard people talk about those tests.

They're just no fun.

And I think that DeWine is really trying to push any sort of effort to incentivize, for instance, the Columbus Clippers, which is the AAA affiliate of the Cleveland Indians.

They're having an event next week where you can get a shot and a beer and watch a ball game.

You know, these are the kinds of things that and what Anna was talking about with employers getting the shot and having clinics right there on site.

I think those are the kinds of things that DeWine is really trying to focus on rather than doing PSA's and that sort of thing, which are still going on, but to try to really bring the vaccine to where people are so that they have the opportunity to get it right then.

- What about children, Anna?

The governor has said he really wants to get vaccines into schools before the end of the year so kids can be vaccinated.

And we're talking kids now.

Right now, it's approved for 16 and over, the Pfizer is.

There's a move afoot to have Pfizer approved next week for emergency authorization for children as low as, as young as 12.

- Right, that's expected to happen early next week.

So it'll be in the coming days.

And you know, DeWine is asking schools to start working with health departments.

I am aware of, you know, hospitals are also working along this too.

Because sometimes they have contracts in school districts.

So yeah, this could be happening pretty soon.

And one of the reasons that people are really wanting this is because children are actually accounting for a lot of the new cases of COVID.

Health experts say that kind of makes sense, that it would skew young now that many people in the older populations are vaccinated, but... - [McIntyre] More than 20%.

- Right, more than 20% of the new cases are in children.

And so throughout this pandemic, experts say that children haven't been the ones having the most severe outcomes of COVID.

However, they spread it like crazy.

They are super spreaders.

I mean, think of their behaviors with kids.

It's hard to keep them socially distant.

And so there is fear that for those who aren't getting vaccinated in the older population that they might get it from their kids or, you know, the little kids running around them.

So that's a big part.

You know, there's also this talk of vaccines have hit a wall right now.

I mean, we're seeing it's really dropped off.

And so they're thinking it's going to be harder to reach that herd immunity of that 70% of the population getting the shot.

And so if we can include children in that mix, cause they're a big part of the population, they're thinking we could really get toward there.

But again, it's in the next coming days we're thinking it's going to be as low as kids age 12.

For kids lower than that, it's really hard to study them people have told me, so we might not see that for some time, but it'll be at least 12.

So we got some pre-teens soon.

- It's an interesting consideration for parents.

Even parents who have decided themselves to be vaccinated whether or not they think it's a good idea, given that it is emergency use authorization.

It isn't a kind of testing and long-term impact that you might've seen with other things.

So it's understandable that people are going to be doing a lot of thinking about this.

Karen?

- I think that working with schools though, DeWine may be looking at that, because schools do have some experience here in getting some mass vaccinations going because you might recall back in March, schools were under a deal with the governor's office to vaccinate teachers and other school workers to get kids back into class in person or at least in a hybrid learning setting.

So there were a lot of schools that put on these vaccination clinics with hospitals and moved their staff really very easily in and out.

And so I think that they might be hoping that schools could revive that model, especially when you're talking about high school students and down into junior high.

(dramatic music) - A federal judge this week vacated a national moratorium on evictions.

In the ruling, the judge said the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention overstepped when it issued the moratorium in response to the pandemic.

So Nick, this is the decision that could have a big impact on Clevelanders, both the tenants and landlords.

- Yeah, I mean this CDC eviction moratorium was helpful for tenants obviously who were trying to avoid eviction if they couldn't pay their rent because of conditions during the pandemic, such as losing a job I know Legal Aid Society of Cleveland was trying to help tenants who might qualify, be able to use this defense.

Now we're, things are kind of up in the air now.

The federal government, the justice department, is appealing this decision.

And so we'll have to see if the appellate court issues a stay on it while the litigation continues, which would mean that things continue operating as they have for the past a year or so.

And so that's really the big next question we got to watch.

- I think the federal reserve had recently come out with a study that said that these efforts, those and others, have really helped in terms of the eviction situation; that obviously could change.

But in Cleveland, it has helped to hold down evictions because of moratorium, also this right to counsel program.

- Right, exactly, this has been a big focus of attention for for folks in Cleveland, trying to make sure that tenants who are facing eviction have some kind of legal representation.

You know, it's not a criminal case.

And so, or it's not, I think it is a civil case.

In any event, it's not a case where you are guaranteed counsel as you would if you were charged with a crime and a public defender would be appointed if you can't afford a lawyer.

In this case, you know, tenants could face eviction without legal representation.

And so Legal Aid Society, Cleveland City Council, other organizations have been trying, United Way, have been trying to make that representation available, so that tenants do have someone as a legal advocate when they are brought into Cleveland housing court.

(dramatic music) - Ohio is the latest state to propose a rewrite of election laws in the aftermath of the 2020 election and unsubstantiated claims of fraud.

The author of the bill, Republican State Representative Bill Seitz of Cincinnati, says it aims to incorporate voting provisions sought by both parties, and not an effort to disenfranchise our suppress voters.

Democrats disagree.

Karen, Democrats aren't happy with some aspects of his bill.

- I talked to Senator Bill Seitz, or Representative Bill Seitz.

He was a Senator before, sorry about that.

Representative Bill Seitz for our TV show, "The State of Ohio" this week.

He has, Bill Seitz is a sound bite machine.

He has a lot of things to say about this issue.

He's very concerned about Democrats pushing back because he says that this is not about overturning the results of the 2020 election.

He wants to do things such as limit counties to one secure ballot dropbox for just 10 days before the election, eliminate that in-person voting the day before the election, create an online ballot request system that requires two forms of ID.

He says Democrats who are criticizing him are partisans and they don't want to find fraud.

Democrats are pushing back saying, Hey we believe what's happening here is great.

We're concerned about the long lines that we saw.

And if Seitz has concerns, maybe he's throwing out these allegations to try to throw people off from what his real intentions are.

So this is going to be a partisan fight almost certainly.

- It also contains something that Democrats like a lot, automatic voter registration at the Bureau of Motor Vehicles.

- Automated voter registration, not automatic.

There's a difference, and we don't have time to get into it right now.

But yeah Democrats do, I think, like some elements of this but they're very concerned about what they say is the limiting of access.

They say that Ohio's problem is not voter fraud.

There was no voter fraud in 2020 election, no widespread voter fraud.

They're concerned about voter access.

(dramatic music) - As expected, Ohio lawmakers have introduced a standalone distracted driving bill.

Governor DeWine had included distracted driving provisions in his budget proposal, but the legislature struck those.

This new bill would essentially make Ohio a hands-free state.

It would be illegal for a driver to even hold their phone while driving.

The Ohio highway patrol says the state has seen a rise in distracted driving crashes and deaths over the last decade.

Unlike other cell phone laws on the books, this one makes distracted driving a primary offense.

- Yeah, and that's been something that people who want to see this stop have been wanting because it makes it, you know, defining that as a secondary offense, I think that they wanted it to be pushed up to a primary offense to really indicate how dangerous it is and really get people to stop doing it.

That it's not just about the enforcement as much as it is the awareness of how dangerous it is and get people to stop doing it.

Nationwide Insurance based here in Columbus reported that its app that it uses for a particular study.

People took their eyes off the road 13 times a day for up to six seconds at a time, and think about when you're on the freeway how much can happen in that period of time.

And so there was a distracted driving proposal that was taken out of the state budget.

And now lawmakers are considering this as a separate proposal.

And so the whole idea is to really crack down on this problem because it can be very, very dangerous.

- So meanwhile, on the day that this is introduced and talked about, there was a meeting in which Ohio State Senator Andrew Brenner on like a zoom meeting and he's of suburban Columbus was in the video meeting.

And you can see as he's going along, even though the background is his home office, he's got a seatbelt across his chest and it's doing the right left, right left kind of motion.

Clearly the man was driving, Karen?

- Yeah it sure seemed like he was driving.

- [McIntyre] In the middle of the meeting.

- Yeah, I mean, this was a meeting, this was a meeting of a panel of lawmakers discussing some things, and here's what appears to be Senator Andrew Brenner driving a car.

You can see the seatbelt really clearly though the background is blurred.

And so for a lot of people, this was like, this is what we're talking about.

Video conferencing?

I mean, not just, you know, having a phone call but video conferencing during while you're driving is really the potential distracted driving right there.

But Brenner says he was just listening, that he had pulled over a couple of times.

So it's, it's just the image though is pretty stark.

- And that's going to wrap up our show.

Monday, on the "Sound of Ideas," Help Wanted: establishments across the country are having trouble filling positions.

We heard from the restaurateurs this week, and frontline service workers will weigh in Monday.

I'm Mike MacIntyre.

Thanks for watching and stay safe.

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