- Cleveland is mourning the death of a police officer killed in a line of duty July 4th.

Anti gerrymandering advocates submitted signatures to prompt a vote this fall to remove politicians from legislative mapmaking, but the effort to put a $15 minimum wage on the ballot faltered.

And Cleveland State University is struggling as other schools are with a dip in enrollment and budget woes ideas is next.

Hello and welcome to Ideas.

I'm Mike McIntyre.

Thanks for joining us.

The long July 4th holiday weekend prefaced by law enforcement authorities imploring people to be safe began with tragedy as a 27-year-old Cleveland police officer was shot dead in the line of duty early Thursday in Columbus.

The group pushing to end gerrymandering by removing politicians from the legislative mapmaking process turned in hundreds of thousands more signatures than required to put the issue before Ohio voters.

In November, a minimum wage amendment will not make the ballot.

And Cleveland State University joins a number of other institutions of higher learning, wrestling with financial woes brought on by an enrollment cliff.

A number of majors will be frozen and some may be combined.

Joining me for the round table from Idea Stream Public Media supervising producer of Newscasts Glenn Forbes and health reporter Taylor Whiner in Columbus State House News Bureau reporter Sarah Donaldson makes her round table debut.

Let's get ready to round table.

The holiday began on a somber note in Cleveland as 27-year-old police officer Jameson Ritter, recently honored with his partner as officers of the month was shot dead while attempting to arrest a suspect wanted on a felonious assault charge from Garfield Heights.

The shooting happened in the city's huff neighborhood.

After midnight, Ritter served in Syria with the Ohio National Guard and became a Cleveland cop in 2020.

Glenn, what more do we know about the situation that led to the officer being shot, - Mike?

It started with a report o of a man who was wanted for felonious assault in that area that you mentioned.

East 80th, the Huff Neighborhood.

The suspect, according to police, tried to escape on a bike, and then he pulled out a gun and began firing.

That's kind of the long and short of that particular incident.

We now know the suspect is Dante Hardy.

Let's talk - A little bit about this young man.

What do we know about the officer?

- Well, I thought it was interesting that that family members were quoted as telling Cleveland Police that from an early age Ritter possessed an innate understanding of selfless service to the nation and a strong desire to serve his community.

That is reflected in some of the things that you talked about, serving with the Army National Guard.

He was deployed to Syria, actually, he was with Cleveland Police when he was deployed to Syria and, and came back in in 2023.

And you know, by all accounts, Mike, this officer literally died a hero.

He was just honored, as you mentioned, a little over a week ago, for saving the life of a man with multiple gunshot wounds.

Police say he was applying bandages and chest seals, giving him encouragement to keep him alive, all while still conducting the investigation and trying to get a description of the suspects, which, which led to the arrest of that suspect.

So him and his partner were, were honored just a little over a week ago for those actions.

- Not a native clevelander.

He is from suburban Rochester.

As we heard, Matt Richmond report earlier, graduated from Syracuse University in 2019, came to Cleveland, told he lived in Olmstead Falls.

The the actions that he had done, you just mentioned, you know, he sort of died a hero.

That's something that was addressed by the police chief.

And we heard the same theme not very long ago when a Euclid police officer was killed.

And that is this attitude toward police.

And I wanted to talk a little bit more about that.

What did Chief Annie Todd say about that?

- So Chief Todd was saying how, you know, our men and women, our officers are out there every day.

I'm quoting now.

You see, they don't always get the re recognition they deserve.

There's always stories out there criticizing their work or criticizing our staffing.

Criticizing the, the staffing is, I wanna talk just briefly about, because we have talked an awful lot about how Cleveland police anywhere between 200 to 300 kind of floating in that number under budget in terms of their officers.

And that has kind of come up in every story, whether it be the, the shooting at Edgewater, you know, or this particular incident or, or whatever stories criticizing their work, though.

That is something I've heard a lot of local police chiefs talk about whenever there is an incident involving a police shooting.

So we do hear that a lot.

I it's, it's something that, it's becoming apparent that local police forces, I I should say it is apparent that local police forces are aware of some of the critical coverage around them.

Let's not forget, I mean, Cleveland's also been under our consent decree here, you know, for, for several years, right?

So that notion is out there.

They, they are aware of it, and then something happens like this.

And, you know, they want to let everybody know it's time to show support for the officers.

They need it, they deserve it.

They work hard.

Obviously it's, it's a dangerous job.

And all these, these police chiefs and police unions are, are, seem to be, you know, certainly are saying that they're looking for more support generally.

- Here's Officer Ritter, 27 years old, whole life in front of him and is killed in the line of duty trying to arrest a, a violent suspect.

We have Officer Jacob Durbin, 23 years old in Euclid, responding to a disturbance call and is essentially ambushed in the backyard with a, with a gunshot.

This is not easy work.

- It's certainly not easy work they're dealing with, you know, by by definition, most of the time they're, they're dealing with some of the worst elements of society, right?

I mean, that's what we ask police officers to do.

We ask them to yes, protect us and, and service and all that, but essentially we are asking them to arrest criminals, the people who have done wrong, who should not be on the streets.

And that's a very difficult job, just at its core.

That's a very difficult job.

You mentioned their ages and, and Mike, I just wanna mention this too.

I mean, you, you also talked about the 10-year-old girl who, who was shot and killed last night.

There's a, a report out now that a 15-year-old died in, in a homicide earlier this week.

We have talked, you and I have talked extensively about how to cover things like this and this constant gun violence.

We see it increase every summer.

You know, we certainly see the numbers go up in the summer for all kinds of different reasons, but this certainly seems to be when listening to the Columbus shoot mass shooting that happened last week, there's an issue with not only the availability of guns, but the fact that no one seems to know how to deescalate a situation.

Any minor argument becomes, you know, gunshots are being fired.

We don't know the CI circumstances around the the 10-year-old girl or, or this 15-year-old homicide victim that that's come out as reported.

But obviously there continues to be this problem that needs to be addressed and no one has what exactly the right answer is here, right?

- The death of Officer Ritter and later Thursday, the shooting death of a 10-year-old girl on the west side of Cleveland came as many across the region, began the long 4th of July holiday weekend with the prospect of big crowds at fireworks and festivals and record breaking travel on the roads and in the skies.

Safety was already a top concern.

All of this happens just in this last couple days after several weeks of concern about gun violence.

I'm thinking about at Edgewater Park and in Akron where there were shootings at Edgewater Park, it was apparently a series of a group of young people who just opened fire into, into revelers.

And so now people are worried, well, if I go to a fireworks display or to a, a large picnic gathering, those are concerns that I might have.

That's really the undercurrent of what authorities were saying when they said, be safe out there.

It's, yeah, in one sense it's be safe on the highways.

'cause AAA says 71 million people are gonna be driving and more cars means more crashes.

It means be safe when you're lighting off a firework because it's an explosive.

But really also it means in today's day and age, and I don't know how you do it, be safe being in public.

- Yeah.

And, and not only that, I mean we, we kind of started this summer with these kind of ro I'm not sure what else to call them, kind of roving mobs at these church festivals.

One in Mayfield, one in the Menor area, the St. Gabe's Festival.

So it just, it does kind of seem to be everywhere a little bit.

And you know, I think everyone's trying to get a handle on what this is on, why this is and what to do about it.

You know, meanwhile, there was a press conference by Cleveland Police last week.

We thought we were gonna get some sort of, not necessarily, you know, give us all the details, a comprehensive safety plan, but we thought it was gonna be about, you know, bulked up patrols, increased officers, things like that.

It was kind of all about firework safety and there weren't many specific details.

And when asked Cleveland Police didn't want to say, you know, what some of their strategies were, which in some ways makes sense.

But if you think about last summer, Mike, they talked all about getting the state highway patrol in here, federal and, and state partners.

Now they say that's still ongoing.

They're just not gonna exactly, you know, tell you what it's about.

It just seemed that there was more details on this last year.

We knew a little bit more about where they were gonna be and and, and what they were gonna be doing.

So we would hope to certainly see some progress being made in, in this area.

We're just not sure yet.

- Sarah, you did some reporting on whether the recent shootings and there were one in Dayton as well, have raised interest in any gun measures in Columbus.

The simple answer seems to be no, - That's absolutely correct.

You know, there were documented mass shootings where at least four victims were injured in Columbus, in Akron, in Cincinnati, and in Dayton in June.

But house speaker Jason Stevens, a Republican, says his party super majority really has no appetite to take on any policy that limits firearms.

He said outright, you know, during a gaggle last month that gun control laws simply just don't work in his opinion.

But it's interesting that, you know, it seems like gun control at the State House is out of the question with this Republican super majority.

But GOP backed bills to extend firearm rights to gun owners haven't really been pursued either.

During this general assembly there was one bill, house bill 51, and that would shield Ohioans from federal gun control policies.

So it would basically encourage local law enforcement to not enforce anything the state sees in violation of the Second Amendment.

It's called like a Second Amendment sanctuary state bill.

That bill passed out a committee and it hasn't moved in six months.

It seems like there's a lot of legal arguments over it.

So even GOP backed gun bills that are extending rights haven't really been pursued either.

So it just feels like guns haven't been in the question at all.

Here at the State House, - US representative Amelia Sykes has introduced a bill that seeks to improve police training and improve relationships between departments and the communities they serve.

Sykes is the Democrat from Akron.

She has a bipartisan support for the bill, which was introduced to coincide with the two year anniversary of Jalen Walker's death.

He was shot by Akron Police and was unarmed at the time.

Taylor, what types of training does the bill call on to be created for police?

- Yeah, so basically the bill would require the US Department of Justice, specifically the Office of Community-oriented policing services to create scenario-based training curriculum for law enforcement based on, you know, the many issues they encounter in their communities.

While, you know, policing mainly, you know, dealing with suicidal or mentally ill residents, - Sykes has bipartisan support, which you almost never hear.

- Yeah, yeah.

You know, a co-sponsor of the bills representative Brian Fitzpatrick, a Republican from Pennsylvania, he's also a federal law enforce formerly a federal law enforcement agent agent.

And he says that, you know, just generally people recognize that officers need to have the tools to do their jobs.

And one of those tools is deescalation practices.

And so, you know, he's, he's really behind working with officers and, and other members of the community to bring these resources to officers.

And so, yeah, it, it does seem to be getting support on both sides.

All right.

- Backers of an amendment that would take politicians out of the district mapmaking process, submitted their petition signatures this week, the Secretary of State must determine if there are enough valid signatures to force a November ballot issue.

Sarah, the group says it's confident it'll meet the signatures needed.

And when you, when you see almost double, you think, okay, they might get there, but I've seen a lot of situations where they don't get the number even when they have many, many more than you need as they turn it in.

So we still have to wait for that validation process.

- Yeah, it's a really tough process to get on the ballot with any issue.

So that's probably what we should start the conversation with.

Now, just numbers wise, citizens, not politicians delivered, delivered more than 730,000 signatures.

If you're looking at the abortion issue last year they had about 700,000 as well.

And they obviously qualified for the ballot and different groups approach signature gathering differently.

But we've been told by citizens, not politicians, that they've gone through their own process to verify signatures.

'cause a lot of it has to do with, you know, if someone is signing a petition in their correct county, you know, maybe they move and it, their signature becomes invalidated.

So there's a lot of different things that could make a signature not valid, but citizens, not politicians, says they've already checked their signatures to make sure that it would qualify with the Secretary of State's office.

They still have to go through that official procedure, but I would say there's a really good shot.

They do make the ballot - Right.

It's, it's a, it's a high bar made higher this year.

There's all kinds of requirements, including, you have to have signatures from 44 of the 88 counties at a certain level of signature from each one.

So there's, it's not just, you know, did a bunch of people sign it, Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck?

It's, as you mentioned, are you in the right county?

Did you get enough from each county?

There's, there's a bar you have to clear.

- Absolutely.

They had volunteers across the state, they say at farmer's markets and you know, every sort of local festival and outside of grocery stores, I mean, I'm sure folks who were listening were probably approached.

There's a good chance they were probably approached by a signature gatherer at one point or another.

'cause they've been out there since December, right, of 2023.

- The former Ohio Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, Maureen O'Connor, was a main driver of, of this effort and, and the idea being that we already had a vote of the people to try to take gerrymandering out of the process and it didn't work.

Just take a quick look at the history of why this issue is now steaming toward the November ballot.

- Yeah, I mean the elevator pitch for this amendment is that, you know, Maureen O'Connor and supporters of this amendment, they say that politicians need to be taken out of the process.

They'd rather have an independent commission takeover.

You've got under the current process, politicians, so it's, you know, democratic lawmakers, Republican lawmakers, and there are a majority of Republicans are on the redistricting commission right now, but you do have democratic lawmakers on it as well.

However, you know, back when they were going through redistricting the Ohio Supreme Court, which at the time Maureen O'Connor was serving on, rejected several sets of maps and said they were unconstitutionally gerrymandered.

And it was a very back and forth process that they finally ended on maps that the court had still really ruled were unconstitutionally gerrymandered.

But you know, it was time to get the maps in place for folks to vote.

Right?

So most recently Democrats did vote in a bipartisan vote to accept maps.

I believe it was in, I wanna say 2022 or 2023.

'cause there's a difference obviously between the State House maps and then the Congressional maps.

And right now politicians are in charge of both of those processes.

But Democrats have said, and I will say, because Democrats are in the minority, you see a lot of Democrats really throwing their support behind this amendment.

They've said, we've gotta just throw out the whole process.

- And meanwhile, how Senate President Matt Huffman is opposed, - Yes, he has come out against it and his, some folks in his orbit, or formerly in his orbit, will likely be organizing the official opposition campaign because now that it's likely going to be on the ballot, you're gonna see official opposition coming out out against it.

He says that, you know, he feels it's the language and the amendment is kind of muddled about who could actually serve on the independent redistricting commission.

Because a lot of folks who are involved in politics, they may not be a lawmaker, but they may have some involvement in politics would be barred from serving on this commission.

And you need people informed about the political process to be making these decisions.

And he also just says it would be costly.

- You wonder if citizens would be eager to vote on this issue, given that the public already did pass a process that was supposed to be bipartisan.

And instead of getting bipartisan, as you noted, we had maps that were drawn by Republican members that were then ruled unconstitutional and implemented anyway.

So it, I wonder if the public is saying, listen, we already told you this once and now here we're gonna say it again.

- I definitely think there's a good chance of that.

I think that, you know, it's not, I, I say that obviously elected Democrats have come out for this issue because they're in the minority.

They are not benefiting from a super majority's power right now.

I think you would be hard pressed to see Republicans who serve in Ohio super majority coming out and saying, yeah, I really want this to happen.

Right?

But it's definitely, it's not, it is a bipartisan effort.

I mean, Maureen O'Connor is a Republican, so it's not just Democrats who are for this.

And I do see that sort of issue almost in the same vein that last year with August issue one, when, you know, lawmakers had pitched raising the threshold on how to even get constitutional amendments on the ballot and get the passed, you saw folks, not just Democrats, again, who were concerned about the abortion vote in the fall.

You also saw anecdotally conservative, conservative folks who would say, well, why would I wanna vote to take my rights away?

Why would I wanna vote to dampen my voice?

So I definitely think there's that element at play.

- Voters will not get the chance to decide another amendment that would raise the minimum wage in Ohio to $15 an hour.

One fair wage in Ohio.

The group that was going to try to put this on the ballot ended their effort because it needed 413,000 ballot signatures, but was not able, they said to get the threshold of 44 counties, the number you needed in half of Ohio's counties.

So they're gonna take a crack at it again maybe next year, Sarah, - That's what it sounds like.

And I will say they were never upfront about how many signatures they had actually gathered.

So we're not totally clear right now.

Like if they had met that signature threshold, but they needed more counties, they said they were very close.

There are some challenges that, you know, I'm still trying to figure out as a reporter as well, when they try to approach the 2025 ballot specifically because with raising the minimum wage, they had specific dates outlined in their petition that folks were signing on.

So it's unclear right now if they'd have to go back to the Attorney General and get that language checked again.

But the short answer is that they did decide on the last day that they were not gonna submit their petition signatures and that they would not try and qualify for the 2024 ballot.

- One of the things that the group noted was difficulty in rural counties and people who were trying to collect signatures being abused and accosted, the Secretary of State, Frank LaRose, blasted the campaign for accusing rural Ohioans of being racist, changing their story about when they turn in petitions, blaming his office for family to provide access to his office building.

There's a lot going on here.

- There absolutely is.

And it's something I'm trying to follow up on today because you know, the first I heard of this claim that, you know, folks were being harassed in rural counties was Wednesday when they decided not to submit petition signatures.

So we hadn't heard that before.

And I will say the Secretary of State's office, his spokesperson told us as well that they had heard several different times when one fair wage was gonna drop off their petitions.

Apparently one fair wage had been made very clear that for those of you who have been to Columbus or have lived in Columbus at one time, red, white and boom, the annual July 3rd firework show is a really big deal downtown and a lot of road closures are happening all day.

Folks who work at the State House generally try avoid trying to even come into the State House.

So, I mean, one Fair Wage had been made aware that the Secretary of State's office was right in the center of that.

And, you know, submitting petition signatures is a very analog process.

Citizens, not politicians drove multiple U-Haul filled with boxes and boxes and boxes of petitions, paper petitions on Monday.

So it's a, it's a very labor intensive old style process.

Right.

And one Fair Wage had been made aware prior to, according to the Secretary of State's office, that you know, if you're gonna wait until Wednesday, you're probably gonna run into some issues with Red, white and boom own.

- Cleveland State University says it's freezing admissions for dozens of degree programs this fall to deal with declining enrollment and projected budget shortfalls over the next five years.

The university detailed the plan during a meeting with the cleveland.com and Plain Dealer editorial board.

Glenn, how is CSU identifying the programs that will have an admission freeze?

- Well, it certainly seems like it's, it's based on demand, right?

We're they're taking a look at like a lot of universities are, to be honest.

University of Akron did this within the last couple years as well, just kind of looking at which programs are not as popular, you know, over the last several years, several admission cycles, whatever that may be.

And they're taking a look at either eliminating or, or retooling those programs.

One thing they're looking at is, you know, foreign languages.

They're, they're considering taking languages like French and Spanish and maybe making it like a cultural studies type of idea and comment from one of the officials there is not necessarily have the silos that the current structure requires.

So they're, they're trying to get a, a little creative in this process.

And I think we're gonna see a lot more of the, you know, we've seen it in the last couple years and it seems like we're gonna see a lot more of this recent report showing Cleveland State could lose $153 million over the next five years unless it makes changes to how it operates.

Yeah, and we've, you know, Connor Morris here at Idea Stream and, and a lot of other reporters have talked extensively about, you know, issues, money issues with these colleges.

We've seen several colleges close, of course Notre Dame College here locally.

So this is, this is be certainly becoming a trend.

Mike - Weddings are big business, but not everyone has the time or money to plan a big event nor the energy to even get outta their car.

A concept in Akron is getting notice drive through weddings, at least you get a headstart on the honeymoon.

Couples can hire an efficient and notary to read them their vows without even getting outta the car.

And then take care of all the paperwork to make the marriage legal couples can decide whether to exit the car for the ceremony or they can be the laziest couple in the history of mankind and stay in their bucket seats and get married at that very time.

So my question is, if the day ever came when either of you decided you wanted to get married, would you do it from the seat of a car?

Taylor?

- Not unless, no, I don't think so.

- And I kinda wanted to hear what that no, - I dunno what the end was.

What about you?

- Maybe in Vegas.

What about you?

That's about - It.

Well, it seems like a little bit of Vegas in Akron.

Yes.

Sarah, what about you?

Would you get married in a car?

- I would not.

I'm not a big car person.

I so wish that Central Ohio had better public transit.

So I'm a hard no personally.

- Yeah.

I wonder if it may, I mean, I guess I would have if it meant like we'd get to the honeymoon faster.

Hey, now, like, you know, immediately in the car, hang wait, this wasn't a hangout, Paul.

Oh, I, - I don't know.

I don't know what you're - Talking about, but you're, you know, I don't know if I could have driven to, to Jamaica though, so no.

Maybe to - The airport it probably wouldn't work out.

- Monday on the Sound of Ideas on 89 7 WKSU, we'll bring you a rebroadcast of a recent conversation with Dr. Lisa Damour.

She's an expert on adolescent mental health and development, especially in girls.

She was a consultant on inside Out too.

A film that has crossed the Billion Dollar box office mark globally.

I'm Mike McIntyre.

Thank you so much for watching and stay safe.