An appeals court has ruled that East Cleveland City Council President Latif Shabazz is now officially the mayor.

After Brandon King was sentenced on corruption charges.

Cleveland Mayor Justin Bibb is seeking lakefront development proposals without Brown Stadium.

And start your engines.

Wait.

Actually, there are no engines.

The soapbox derby World Championship rolls into Akron this weekend.

Ideas is next.

Hello and welcome to ideas.

I'm Mike McIntyre.

Thank you so much for joining us.

An appeals court panel on Thursday handed the East Cleveland mayor's office vacated after the corruption conviction and sentencing of Brandon King.

To Lateef Shabazz, who argued the city charter put him as council president next in line.

It means the interim mayor appointed by the court in February.

Sandra Morgan is out.

But they may face each other in a November election.

Cleveland appears ready for life after the Browns.

The city has asked developers for ideas to reimagine the lakefront without a football stadium.

The Browns intend to build a complex in Brook Park with the help of state money and other public contributions.

The gap between rent and wages has doubled since the pandemic, according to a new report.

There's fear that will continue to add to homelessness and racers.

Start your gravity.

The Soapbox Derby World Championship hits Derby Downs in Akron this weekend.

Joining me for the roundtable Abbie Marshall, local government reporter for Ida Stream Public Media and Zaria Johnson, idea Streams environment reporter and in Columbus, chief of the Ohio Public Radio statehouse pit crew.

Karen Kasler, let's get ready to roundtable.

For a short time, the city of East Cleveland had two mayors, one appointed by a judge and one determined by the city charter.

The eighth District Ohio Court of Appeals ruled 2 to 1 Thursday that Lateef Shabazz is now the solitary mayor of East Cleveland.

Abby.

You were there yesterday talking with, Latif Shabazz.

This is the third mayor now with, within a very short amount of time.

Yeah.

The third mayor this year in East Cleveland, Brandon King suspended.

Morgan was, appointed.

And as you mentioned, there was a swearing in of Latif Shabazz after King was convicted of those charges.

But, there was still confusion about who was in charge.

Morgan stayed in charge until yesterday.

And now that Shabazz says, you know, he was the right guy along, but he's glad that the courts finally made this decision.

This clears up some confusion.

I know that you've been doing some reporting, as has, Gabe Kramer and, Matt Richmond in East Cleveland.

And, I know when you went once to ask about, talking to the mayor, it was you had a quizzical response.

Yeah, yeah.

So I went the day after Latif Shabazz had been sworn in by a fellow council member, Pat Slovak, which was right after Brandon King had been convicted of his charges.

There was a swearing in the next day, I believe, was Monday.

I went to City Hall.

With, Yigal Coffman.

And we were asking around, trying to figure out who was the mayor, because it seemed like there were two mayors of this one city.

And we asked one of the security officers, hey, is the mayor in.

And he said, which one?

Which I felt like was a pretty good, you know, indication of the confusion of not only residents but City Hall staffers during this time.

But it seems.

But yesterday when I went to City Hall, you know, I was shown a picture of Morgan and Shabazz shaking hands.

She hand it over the office so it seems like he is the one for now.

He is, he's taking a pretty hard line, though.

Basically, if you didn't believe the city charter made him mayor, then you're gone.

Yeah.

Any any was.

That's what he was asked.

Are you are you going to, like, swing the ax, right.

Yeah.

So yesterday he did say, you know, when we were asking if there was going to be any shakeups within the mayoral office, he said, well, you know, if you didn't uphold the charter, which I presumably meant, didn't, you know, follow his ascension as mayor, then?

You know, we don't we don't need you.

You got to go.

And someone asked, what does that mean?

You got to go?

And he said, I'm going to hand her a dictionary.

But I did ask, you know, does that mean anyone that supported Morgan?

He said, no, not necessarily support.

But, you know, we rely on the charter here.

You vow when you come into the office to uphold the charter.

So if you didn't do that, then you're gone.

And he basically said anyone that, they should know who they are and hopefully he, they resign so that he doesn't fire them.

But yes, that was the sentiment.

Interestingly, it was a 2 to 1 vote.

There's three members of the appeals court panel.

So it prevailed at 2 to 1.

Judge Sean Gallagher, though, dissented.

Basically saying, I think there's going to be an election in November.

And also that the Supreme Court really should have weighed in on this.

Yeah.

He thinks that the original order should have just been upheld and that Morgan should have just remained in office, especially given the proximity to in November election.

This is a very, you know, volatile back and forth, I guess, tug of war.

And he really said that the Supreme Court should weigh in.

So I guess we'll see what happens.

But, yeah, there is a November election upcoming pretty soon, and it looks like both of them are running in that election.

Yeah.

And it's likely that Brandon King will also try to appeal his conviction.

And, you know, there were questions yesterday about if he will run for mayor again, too.

Because right now he's not eligible to hold, that that office but not eligible hold any public office for the rest of his life according to the sentence.

Right.

Right, right.

Yeah.

So we'll we'll keep an eye on it.

We're we're frequently out there.

But it seems like the dust has settled a little bit, and at least we have answers now.

On who is in charge.

And hopefully the residents feel some level of security.

That's not really what we're we're seeing when we go out and talk to people.

But it is a really tight knit community that, you know, they have each other's backs amid all this chaos.

Meanwhile, there was a council meeting on Monday, and it ended after a half hour because they had a minimum quorum and one of the council members got up and left.

Right.

And now they didn't have a quorum, so they had to end the meeting.

You know, that doesn't sound like that's incredibly functional either, if that's what's happening.

Right.

There was a disagreement between some council members and another one, one Billings got up and left, and then Pablo Veeck went to go get him.

But there were news reports that she didn't return, so they no longer had a quorum.

Sandra Morgan, the then mayor, was saying that legislation needed to pass in order to get funding for key infrastructure projects like replacing pipes, fixing roads, that sort of thing.

And any delay like this because of this infighting is just it's hurting the residents.

So I think that that is, you know, another another level to look at is how people and how infrastructure and things are being affected by, this city hall chaos.

Is the fight to keep the Browns in downtown Cleveland all but over?

Cleveland's Mayor, Justin Bibb, this week requested ideas from interested developers for a reimagined lakefront without the Browns.

Bibb has always said he'll redevelop the lakefront top priority with or without the Browns.

But he really made a point, and there was a direct quote that you had from him that was a without the Browns quote.

Yeah.

Last year it was kind of big news when he unveiled that lakefront plan.

And he he said it's going to happen with or without the Browns.

And now he said, we're going to develop a top notch, waterfront without the Browns.

So it seems like, you know, of course there's still the legal battles pending and, I, I'm sure given the opportunity, would keep the Browns downtown, but it seems like he's accepting that reality that it's not going to be that and that, you know, he doesn't want Cleveland residents to be taken for a ride.

When it comes to the Haslem.

So he, he wants, you know, money for demolition, and he wants to see what else they can do, because that is a big plot of real estate.

And quite honestly, like if they're going to be redeveloping, thinking about what the lakefront is going to look like, it kind of time's up.

Perfectly right.

Well, they're reimagining a cohesive lakefront.

The, the Browns have said, yeah, they're interested in helping with demolition costs, but they said we just haven't had a call from the mayor to talk about that.

Right.

So we'll, we'll we'll kind of keep an eye on what that is.

But, in the request for proposals that Bibb put out, he said, you know, maybe we'll demolish, but maybe you can repurpose the stadium.

Yeah, I was I was looking at that and I thought like a big would it be like a big Halloween store spirit, Halloween spirit Halloween.

Right.

Just hanging the banner world's biggest spirit Halloween.

But but truly, though, there have been, some other, you know, I was thinking maybe pickleball courts.

I don't, but there have been, a number of other cities that have made something out of their old stadium.

Yeah, yeah.

I took a look at some other repurposed stadiums.

You, you know, that big bass Pro shop that's the, pyramids down in Memphis.

That was, once a 20,000 seat arena for the University of Memphis basketball team.

In Texas, you have Joel Osteen, the televangelist.

He converted the Summit Arena to a 16,000 seat worship center.

And then in Columbus, they were looking to potentially redevelop Cooper Stadium, which once, into a mixed residential and retail space.

So there are ways to, to make that happen.

And again, I think that it'll be just interesting to see those ideas.

I'm curious, what will what will happen?

Because that more than doubles the, available lakefront space.

And then you would also save the money on demolition if you were able to repurpose the stadium.

I don't know how exactly that would work, but, with it gone, people are saying, look at the potential.

Look at all of that space.

You wonder if the entire plan would have to be changed, though.

Right now they have a lakefront plan that includes a stadium, so there's some housing and some other stuff.

Would that all change if there's no stadium?

So that could be a little bit more cohesive?

I think there's a lot of plannin Karen, the city's lawsuit and a Browns countersuit are still pending about this.

But in addition to the $600 million from unclaimed funds, the state budget weakens the model law.

That's the basis of the city's suit.

Yeah, that's the lawsuit or that's the law rather, that came from the action when Art model took the Browns out of Cleveland to Baltimore.

And it says basically that if you are a professional sports team playing in a publicly funded stadium, you can't move without certain conditions.

And so I think there are some people in Columbus who are a little bit concerned that maybe the Haslam owned the crew.

Could the model law and the change that be part of this?

But obviously there's nothing in the budget that, addresses that at all.

But it does make it easier for sports teams to move to other parts of the state.

It's just that they apparently can't move out of state.

Got it.

Abby, some ideas for the lakefront.

We've already heard there could be housing, hotels, offices, parks, cultural attractions.

I heard some aspiration examples as well.

Like here.

Here's what it could be like.

It could be like Bridge Park in Dublin, Ohio, Capitol, riverfront, Navy Yard, and the Union Market District in Washington.

The mayor is is making expectations high.

Yeah.

And again, I've brought it up before on this program because I'm from Cincinnati.

But I think about Smale Riverfront Park down in Cincinnati, which is just beautiful, river walking experience.

And we have the opportunity, not just with the Cuyahoga, but, the lakefront to really make it a place that people want to visit.

It's not just about making it nice for people that live here, but, tourists, people that come and, you know, you can really experience that, and, you know, maybe more people will walk downtown than maybe see, a football football game.

Meanwhile, progress continues on the riverfront, where bedrock is investing hundreds of millions of dollars, the help of tax increment financing, another public funding tool.

We saw the, capping off of the, the Cleveland Cavaliers and Cleveland Clinic facility that's going to be there.

But we're talking about a major development on the other waterfront.

Right.

And that's, you know, we talk about Dan Gilbert, the owner of the Cavs really investing in that.

And that has been something that the city has really commended.

You know, as you were seeing one billionaire kind of pull out of downtown and other ones really doubling down.

So, it'll be interesting to see how that shapes up, but it is kind of cool to see that progress and see something.

You know, I went out and just saw an empty site about a year ago, and now there's that training facility.

So it is cool in real time to kind of see that progress happening downtown.

Afterschool programs are at risk of being eliminated across the region this fall.

If a $6 billion federal funding freeze for several education programs continues.

Sorry to tell us a little bit more about horizon, why it decided to end.

Essentially afterschool programs this fall.

Just the the uncertainty, the idea that if this money doesn't come, there's no way they could do it.

Yeah, that's exactly it.

So part of that $6 billion, it's now frozen.

Should have gone to the 21st Century Community Learning Center program.

And they fund afterschool programs across the country.

And part of that money would have gone to horizon through, through that program.

And so the executive director, Dave Smith, said that, this freeze could wipe out nearly all 21 nonprofit, afterschool programs in Cleveland.

And so, since the funding is now in question about whether or not they'll be able to access it, he said he decided to end their programs so that parents have time to kind of figure out where their children might be able to go.

By the time the fall semester starts.

Yeah, I think about that.

My kids are grown, but they we needed aftercare.

And my wife and I both work, and so there needed to be a program for them.

And you want it to be one that isn't just warehousing, right.

And so I think about these parents who have uncertainty themselves.

I mean, you would think they're going to start looking for something else, but there isn't always an affordable option for that.

Yeah, it was the same for me and my mom.

I, I relied on, afterschool programing throughout my, my schooling.

And, they mentioned that a lot of the, the families that use their programs either need them completely or they're primarily low income.

So option alternative options for the for them to go to are could be difficult to find now that the funding is in question.

But there are a couple of programs that are a little bit more optimistic about whether or not it will be reinstated, and that the programs will be able to continue.

A new report shows the gap between what rent costs and what renters make has more than doubled since the pandemic.

The average renter earns less than $19 an hour, which is almost $4 less than the two bedroom housing wage.

Karen, let's talk about those findings.

What did they tell us?

The big thing here is that of the 15 most common professions in Ohio, only general operation managers, truck drivers, maintenance workers and registered nurses earn enough to really afford a two bedroom apartment, according to this report.

So four out of 15, those are the ones that can afford it.

The rest 11 of them can't, according to this report.

And so that's that's a lot that's a lot of people in Ohio who technically cannot afford a two bedroom apartment.

And it just really adds to the whole discussion about affordable housing, which we referenced in the previous segment, about the lakefront and redeveloping that.

And there has been a significant problem in having affordable housing so that people can actually access it across the state.

The state is way short of the number of units that they really need to serve.

All the people who need it.

Yeah.

You know, I've got a young daughter who moved out and got half of a house, and I got to tell you, that stuff is not cheap.

And, you know, she luckily has a job and can pay for those things.

But a big chunk of what she makes goes.

And I imagine the same with with you guys.

Young reporters are working and a lot of your money goes toward rent.

Yeah, well, Abby owns her home.

Well, right.

I want to go toward mortgage.

Yeah.

No wonder.

No, the bank owns her home.

Yeah, as a as it owns mine as well.

But.

Yeah, that's that's got to be a cost.

And that's if you have a job and can and can make that payment.

But imagine if you're in one of those professions where you're earning less than the amount of money that it takes to pay for it.

Karen, your colleague Joe Engels spoke to one of the organizations behind the report, the Coalition on Homelessness and Housing in Ohio, and found that this trend could mean more people without housing at all.

Yeah.

When you consider that Ohio's minimum wage is $10.70 an hour, so that means 84 hours a week to afford a two bedroom rental.

That's that's the math on that.

Now, obviously, there are a lot of people who are not making minimum wage.

And you hear quite often the argument that minimum wage is supposed to be a starting wage and that sort of thing, but it really does suggest to you that there's going to be a serious problem here with this gap, because it is increasing.

I mean, it's 140% increase from what wages were in 2020 to now in terms of the gap there.

And so that means that there's a lot of people.

I think the estimate was about 1.2 million people in Ohio who are in that gap, who are having trouble affording that two bedroom apartment.

And again, it's a basic two bedroom apartment, like, just under $1,200 a month.

This week, after nearly six decades of federal funding for public media.

Congress approved the rescission package that President Trump demanded.

The Corporation for Public Broadcasting will lose $1.1 billion, impacting public media stations across the country.

Idea stream receives about 10% of its funding from CPB.

Karen.

There are many attempts by Republicans over the years to remove public media funding.

In fact, successful votes in the House, those have then been usually not supported by the Senate, but those have been in the budgeting process.

This is a clawback.

Yeah.

This was money that was appropriated in a previous session of Congress.

And the vote did go through last night in the House.

So this bill is on its way to President Trump's desk.

And, it did go forward with two Republicans in the House voting no.

Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania and Mike Turner of Ohio.

And there are three Democratic seats that are open.

Three Democrats died this year.

So there's certainly you could speculate on what would happen if those three seats have been filled or if those Democrats were still with us.

But, yeah, this is I as long as I've been here.

I've been here for 21 years now, and I can remember even going out to an early voting session on a weekend one time and seeing people dressed up as Elmo and Big Bird saying that, they were fighting defunding of PBS.

So this is this is a significant change in the bipartisan support that PBS, NPR, through the Corporation of Public Broadcasting, have enjoyed.

One of the things that we've often heard is that this is an infinitesimally small amount of money for the federal budget, which is, you know, you look at the debt of the federal government, etc.. And Senate Majority Leader John Thune, of South Dakota, noted that it's a small amount, but said it's a step in the right direction.

Yeah.

I mean, he notes that the U.S.

is in is $36 trillion in debt.

I don't know that the billion dollars that went to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting was a big part of that.

It doesn't seem like I don't do math well, but that doesn't seem like it was a big 1.1 one tenth of 1%.

So, but I think that this is happening now because this is a promise that Trump had made to his supporters.

And Republicans will say, that's why we were elected.

We were elected to do this.

And so we're doing it.

And they have the votes to do it.

Apparently.

So I think that's part of why one of the things that's been brought up, though, and it was brought up by Steve Inskeep, even this morning on Morning Edition, many of these lawmakers have been on NPR.

They have been on PBS NewsHour, and they've been telling stories and their thoughts and their opinions in their own words.

And so it is a little frustrating for those lawmakers to have been on our air, essentially, and then voted against, the basic funding for us.

if you want to cash in, you could be like the cable stations that just take a point of view and then run with it, whatever it might be, whether it's conservative or liberal.

I know that here locally, we strive as hard as we can to get all sides of a story, and I know you've got a reputation for that at the state House as well.

You have your State of Ohio show every week, and the governor comes on and as the head of the Democratic caucus will come on all of that.

Yeah.

And, this week I've got Senator Bill blessing, a Republican from Cincinnati, and the new minority leader, Danny Isaac, center on, and I put out a tweet, I'm sorry, a post on ex.

Excuse me.

Yesterday, just kind of showcasing what public radio is in Ohio and how we cover things that aren't covered elsewhere.

We find interesting angles of stories, we find new ways to talk about issues.

We put people on the air who might be ignored in other commercial outlets, for instance.

And I think that that's something that's really important.

We pay attention to local communities and to regional news and statewide news, which is really been falling off when with consolidations of newsrooms and closing of newspapers and and other outlets, it's really been important.

I think what we provide in terms of a as a voice for people and to inform and educate people about what's going on in their communities and rest assured, will be continuing to do that.

The statehouse News Bureau, as well as Ida stream, we're going to weather this.

The question really, though, Karen, and this is what Tammy Baldwin brought up, is what about these small stations?

What about the the places that depend not on 10% of their budget, but but 50, 60, 70, almost 100% of their budget?

Yeah.

Woub down in Athens, which is tied to Ohio University and has trained generations of broadcasters and journalists and communications professionals, including our Sarah Donaldson, and Dan Connick, our videographer.

I mean, that that is they get by about 25% of their budget from the corporation for Public Broadcasting.

The impact of this on rural stations is really, really key.

And, you know, if you think about, well, I never watch public broadcasting or whatever, of course, or if you're listening to this show, you probably do.

But, I mean, there's a public service that's provided here that goes well beyond Sesame Street and whatever.

I mean, think about during Covid, when we were on the air, all of us doing these live briefings on what was being shut down, what was being opened up, these are the kind of public services that public broadcasting provides that you just don't get elsewhere.

Ever since the state budget approved moving $1.7 billion from the state's unclaimed funds account to a pro sports stadium, fund, claims for those funds have risen by 80%.

But they're finding the money difficult to get.

Karen Joe Ingles talked to residents this week about their experience trying to claim the funds.

It's not just like clicking on it and saying, you know, here's my Social Security number.

That's my money.

There's a lot to do.

Well, it looks like it when you first go onto the site.

And I encourage everybody to go on to the site because you might find some money.

How fun is that?

It looks like you just have to click and you put in your Social Security number and your information and boom.

But you do have to prove certain things, especially if you're trying to claim for someone else.

I'm trying to claim some money, for instance, that, is in there from my late husband.

And so it makes it difficult because you have to find these documents, you have to upload them.

And, Jeffrey Grossman, the Democratic former lawmaker who's suing over this, said that there's a cashier's check in the unclaimed funds that he is supposed to get, that he can't get because he has to prove that he has a copy of that check.

But it's there in the unclaimed funds that got me.

I was like, yeah, if I had a copy of the check, I would have cashed it.

Exactly right.

And even the unclaimed funds people at the Division of Commerce have said, yeah, we know that there are some problems.

We know this is difficult.

And so they've been trying to kind of revamp their website to make it a little bit easier.

But some of these funds have been there for so long.

People lose documents, people forget about this stuff.

And so some of these funds will just never be claimed.

And that's part of why I think the legislature has started this process of basically taking ownership of funds that have been there longer than ten years to move them over to this, Sports and Cultural Facilities Fund.

Got a fascinating email from Katie who says, I searched the database and my 89 year old mom has $3.99 in Ohio unclaimed funds.

She's lived in the same house since 1963, paid property taxes, has an Ohio ID.

Why isn't there some kind of cross-reference to verify identity?

No plans to upload the documents required.

And she says maybe she'll have a brick with her name.

And 399 contribution to the Brook Park Stadium.

Okay.

All right.

Katie.

And meanwhile, she said I had unclaimed funds in Illinois.

No documentation required.

Receive my check.

Plus interest in eight days.

Wow.

Yeah.

And that's one of the things that, in Joe's reporting on this is, you know, the idea of the state knows they know this information about you.

Why aren't they just sending it to you, or why aren't they contacting you and that's just not how it works.

I know that, Senator Casey Weinstein has talked about it.

He's a Democratic senator from Hudson, talked about, coming up with, legislation that would really address how to make this not only more streamlined, but really make it more responsive and make it so that people have the opportunity to get their funds easier.

Move over F1 the All American Soapbox Derby World Championships has brought hundreds of young speed racers to Akron.

The big race at Derby Downs is happening Saturday, and there's a parade downtown to start the day.

Sorry, people might not know it's soapbox derby was actually founded in Ohio.

Yeah, I didn't know that until I read this story.

It was founded in 1934 by Myron Scott.

He was a journalist in Dayton, and he came up with the idea after watching a group of kids race cards with cars that were made out of scrap wood.

So so that they can.

So.

Exactly.

Yeah.

And that was the year before.

So after the first championship, it moved over to Akron, where it still is headquartered today.

But it's pretty cool.

I've always thought that was really cool.

And there's like a little soapbox track next to the West Shore way, too.

As you're driving home, you can see that there.

But in Akron, this is this is a big deal.

Big deal.

Whole world is coming.

300 plus racers, really cool stuff.

They're going to find out how to turn the energy they have into kinetic energy as they're going down the hill.

I love that it's not engines, it's just the design and gravity.

Yeah, and and you could do it.

You kids can obviously do it.

But age 20 is the cutoff.

And I didn't realize that until I was.

So I'm like, we just missed on dang Monday on The Sound of Ideas on 89 seven, KSU coordinating producer Drew Macias will step into the host chair as a fill in as we continue the search for Jenny Hammel successor.

He'll talk to local scientist about efforts to make science more understandable and engaging to fight misinformation online.

I'm Mike McIntyre.

Thank you so much for watching and stay safe.