Welcome to the Sound of Ideas Reporters' Roundtable from Ideastream Public Media.

I'm Mike McIntyre.

Thanks for joining us.

Clean air standards in Cleveland haven't been updated in half a century, and the air here isn't great.

City officials want to do something about it.

Akron, meanwhile, believes it can complete its compliance with clean water standards mandated by the feds without having to shell out $300 million more for a new sewage treatment plant.

Cleveland will unveil its new lakefront development plan later this month, but there's a last-minute wrinkle.

The county wants it to make room for a future convention center expansion too.

Ohio's nuclear power plants will get a big upgrade thanks to billions in federal loans.

And rabies is on the rise in the bat population.

Did we need any more reason to avoid them as at all costs?

Joining me to discuss these stories and more from Ideastream Public Media, environment reporter Zaria Johnson, education reporter Conor Morris, and local government reporter Sean McDonnell.

Good to see all of you.

Good morning.

Glad to be here.

Good to see you.

And in Columbus, a woman who loves bats, but only the ones swung by Cleveland Guardians players on their way to 2 straight playoff wins, Ideastream Statehouse News Bureau Chief Karen Kasler.

Hey, Karen.

I got my gear on.

I'm ready.

I'm ready for Saturday.

I know how excited you must be.

nine runs seems to be the magic number, right?

You get nine runs, you win.

I whatever works.

I am.

I'm here for all of this.

This is amazing.

I think it's funny because I'm watching the game last night and I'm excited for myself as a fan.

I'm excited for the team, but I'm thinking about you the whole darn game.

I'm like she must be going crazy.

I couldn't even watch.

I I couldn't even watch part of it.

I had to have my son tell me that it was okay to watch because there was a period where we were losing.

So yeah, but I just I'm so excited.

Oh good.

All right.

Well, we'll talk.

For another half hour about that at the end of the show.

But for now, you can weigh in throughout the show by sending us an email to soi@ideastream.org.

And let's get ready to roundtable.

Cleveland officials are renewing efforts to overhaul the city's air code for the first time since 1977, citing health impacts from poor air quality.

This coming as the state seeks to eliminate E-Check tailpipe emissions testing in Northeast Ohio after the US EPA deemed Northeast Ohio in attainment for federal air quality standards for the first time in years.

So is it just a pocket of bad air in Cleveland, Zaria?

Lets talk about that.

What would the proposed change do to improve air quality in Cleveland?

Yeah, it would do a few things if council approves it.

That includes establishing an indoor air quality program, increasing annual air permit fees for polluters in Cleveland to establish a new emission reduction and mitigation fund, and require a cumulative impact report every 5 years studying the impact of air pollution on residential health in Cleveland, while also placing more stringent regulations on industries located in neighborhoods in Cleveland that already have higher rates of pediatric asthma or worsened air quality already.

And speaking of that, Cleveland and Cuyahoga County in general don't do really well on national surveys and studies about the air quality.

So this is what they're targeting.

Exactly.

So there's a report every year from the American Lung Association.

And this year, Cleveland, the Cleveland-Akron-Canton metro area ranked 12th worst in the country for annual particle pollution.

And Cuyahoga County failed every air quality metrics studied by the association this year.

So health officials are saying that we need to update this code for the first time in nearly 50 years to better deal with the air pollution we're seeing from industry now, from transportation now, and so that the health department can go further in regulating air quality citywide.

And we talk about neighborhoods that are affected and impacted poorly by this.

They're specifically east side Cleveland neighborhoods?

Yeah, during the council meeting earlier this week, the health department put up a map it was a heat map basically, and you could see this disparity between the west side and the east side where the east side is facing higher rates of asthma and worsened air quality.

And so when we think about the health department sort of targeting these communities and targeting facilities in those communities, that's where these codes would be necessary.

I noticed this kind of contradiction.

It seemed like that the area is supposed to be having better air quality, which is one of the arguments for getting rid of E-Check emissions testing.

But now we're hearing that the air quality is poor and we need to update standards that we haven't done anything with in 50 years.

How do those two jive?

Yeah, so the EPA bringing Northeast Ohio into attainment earlier this year, that was a 5-county, I believe 5 counties in Northeast Ohio.

And so overall, based on federal standards for the EPA, the 5-county region reached, did what it needed to do to become in attainment with air quality standards.

But here in Cleveland, our air quality isn't up to snuff for our local city health officials.

So that's where the disparity, or the maybe the miscommunication, the disconnect is.

It just seems like a paradox.

Yeah, exactly.

Mike, we did a story like a couple years ago on Slavic Village specifically, and it has some of the highest childhood asthma rates in the U.S.

Almost like 28% of children are diagnosed with asthma.

So when you say pockets, you're absolutely right.

That's a big one.

Yeah.

And so what happens next, Zaria?

So City Council is expected to vote on this in November, or at least before the end of the year.

And at that point, the Health Department will be able to move forward with this proposed plan.

In the event that it doesn't happen, I'm not quite sure what will happen next, but the Health Department has been continuing to engage the public in their experience with air quality, their experience with air pollution health effects, and I'm sure that'll continue in the, in the long term.

All right.

The 90-day suspension of Ohio's gas tax went into effect last week.

It'll save most drivers a few bucks, almost $6 on a 15-gallon fill-up.

But not everyone behind the wheel is getting the break.

Here we provide definitive answers to feedback the last couple of times we discussed the gas tax break, like Wesley, who wrote, hybrid and electric owners have a surcharge on their vehicle registrations.

Will the owners get a 25% refund on their surcharge?

And Bob, who wrote, if Ohio legislators believe Ohio drivers deserve a 90-day reprieve on the gas tax, I respectfully speak up on behalf of electric vehicle drivers who pay an extra $200 surcharge when we purchase our annual tags .Don't EV drivers deserve a $50 rebate?

So sorry, Wesley and Bob are out of luck, right, Karen?

Yeah, in fact, I got a lot of emails myself about this, and so I decided to check into it.

And yeah, there's nothing in the fuel tax holiday that helps hybrid drivers, EV And in full disclosure, I actually drive a hybrid myself, so I was kind of wondering that personally.

But, uh, yeah, there's nothing in here.

I did talk to Senator Casey Weinstein from Hudson.

He's a Democrat who had wanted to propose something on the floor in the Senate that would've addressed this.

And as we might remember, the debate on the whole bill was cut off pretty quickly and there was no opportunity for any Democrats to propose any amendments or anything.

So he had the idea to do it.

The Republicans said no.

I think they basically said the Democrats were looking to grandstand and to slow down something that they needed to get done.

So nothing happened with it.

So where, where do we stand now that they're gonna lose something like $700 million that would've come in through the gas tax?

How is that made up?

It's $726 million that's gonna be made up through general revenue funds.

And they had originally looked at when the gas tax proposal was gas tax holiday proposal was first unveiled, was using Ohio Department of Transportation funds.

Well, the money that was in the Ohio Department of Transportation fund, all that money was already earmarked for other projects.

So there wasn't the money available.

So that's why they're turning to general revenue funds to put the money back, because obviously that money, that gas tax money, does go to road repair and construction.

It's, it's needed.

Yeah, that's one of the, one of the pushbacks I heard about this is, yeah, you're saving a few dollars, and we mentioned $6, I think, if you have a 15-gallon fill-up.

But what does that do long term to the funding for maintaining your roads?

So what we're saying is we're going to take that from the regular general fund.

And when you start talking about savings, too, I think a lot of people are noticing this, that the gas prices are all over the place.

I mean, you've got some places that are still close to $4, some places that are down around $3.50.

The whole idea that everybody came down immediately, well, that's just not how gas prices work.

And they're set they're set by commodity markets.

They're set in a lot of different ways.

And so I think there's been some frustration on the part of even some lawmakers who were touting that they voted for this gas tax holiday, they're not seeing the gas prices drop as dramatically as maybe they were hoping.

Well, well, well, what's going on here?

Right.

Do you always pass along the savings to the consumer or sometimes you don't?

Yeah, and there's supposed to be something in this legislation that makes sure that the gas tax holiday savings are passed on.

But again, gas tax or gas prices just fluctuate dramatically, as we've seen.

So some places you still have to shop around, basically.

Sean, you talked this week with Tanmay Shah, who is a Cleveland City Council member.

He was critical of the gas tax holiday.

What did he have to say?

Yeah, he pointed out that this is, you know, $700 million in savings for people, but this is $700 million that you're not going to spend on essential services.

So he said that this was like a quick political win, but in the long run, this is less money that lawmakers are putting towards you know, things that people need.

And he didn't go directly just at this issue.

He made it a little bit broader in that he targeted what he called centrist Democrats like Mayor Justin Bibb, that their strategy here is not the right strategy.

He's a, I believe, a democratic socialist.

There's been a whole discussion throughout the whole country.

In fact, you did a story about that playing out itself in Cleveland, the, quote, centrist Democrats, folks like Council President Blaine Griffin, and then folks who are pushing a more progressive agenda.

Right.

And so he used this specifically because the mayor had recently launched a coalition of centrist Democrat mayors.

We're going to talk about that later in the show.

But we did a story earlier this week looking at city council to show the divides nationally.

So city council's all Democrats, but you still have a progressive wing and a conservative wing.

Shah is the only Democratic Socialist, but there's a lot of progressives on council.

And so we really looked at the ways that, again, these are all Democrats, but they all disagree in a lot of different ways.

Yeah, we're seeing that play out.

It's across the nation, as we said.

It's great to see this microcosm in Cleveland, which kind of shows the differences of opinions.

But regardless of what the party is, it's the strategy.

What's going to be the winning strategy?

Is it the progressive push?

Is it the, you know, the idea of more help for citizens and rent breaks and all those types of things?

The progress of building business and, and creating jobs.

All of those things meshed into one.

It's not one thing or the other, but you're seeing this sort of people have called it a civil war within the party playing out.

And you see it on the Republican side too with MAGA versus, sort of, the, the old Rockefeller Republican situation.

Yeah.

And I think what made Shah upset is that Bibb was doing national interviews comparing MAGA and DSA, which is why he felt like he needed to say something.

But You know, Democrats are trying different strategies, whether they subsidize and give tax breaks or whether they do things themselves like city-run grocery stores and these things.

And, you know, we talked to a political science professor who said, really, the midterms are going to decide this.

Whoever if the Democrats do really well and progressives do really well, then we might see the party keep shifting left.

But if the progressives don't do well, then people like Mayor Justin Bibb and others will say, see, we were right, we need to be more centrist.

All right, and we will get into that a little bit later too.

While you're here, Cleveland has been working on reimagining the downtown lakefront for years and has commitments for state and federal money for a big piece, a land bridge connecting downtown with the waterfront.

But a last-minute push to assure any plans leave room for a future Cuyahoga County Convention Center expansion has presented a new complication.

So Sean, County Executive Chris Ronayne and Destination Cleveland are advocating this proposal of leaving room at least for the possibility of an expansion of the convention center.

How could it affect Cleveland's lakefront plans?

So it could mean changing the design of the land bridge that's a key part of the plan.

So this would be the bridge that brings you over the railroad and over the Shoreway.

This bridge would take off from Mall C, that big grassy area between City Hall and the old courthouse, which is also the roof, which is also the roof of the convention center.

So both of these projects want to go north.

And so the question is, does this land bridge need to go higher so that the convention center can be under it?

Can one divert west or one divert east?

We don't really know yet what the solution will be.

Yeah, and what will the implications be with perhaps Homeland Security?

It's going over an active railroad.

If you have people in a facility above that, is that different than a bridge and pedestrians walking across it?

When we talk about a land bridge, just to be clear, it's not like just a pedestrian bridge of concrete.

This is to look like, you know, an extension of the Mall.

It would be a way to get without playing Frogger to our lakefront, somewhere direct to that.

The idea that the convention center expansion might happen northward as well isn't a new thought, but putting this into the equation now is pretty late in the game because we are supposed to hear this month what the plan for the lakefront is, and now suddenly it's like, oh, and by the way, This should be accommodated too.

Right.

So Ronayne and David Gilbert told Steve Litt that they've been working on this idea for a while, but the city first found out in June.

Not only are we getting plans later this month, but they're gonna start looking for a design-build team to start building this.

And there is a deadline because they have to start construction by the end of 2027 because there's $130 million of federal grants that are tied to this.

Right.

And the concern is if they're somehow not on the same page, what does that do to the federal money?

Does, is there some concern, hey, we wanna fund things that are ready to go?

When Steve Litt broke this story earlier this week, he talked with city officials.

They were conciliatory in that we don't need to slow things down, but we're certainly going to try to work with the county and accommodate it.

But on a follow-up story, Hannah Drown from cleveland.com talked to the mayor, and he was pretty blunt.

He called this a pie-in-the-sky project and said, I'm not going to change my lakefront plans for a convention center that isn't funded.

And Jessica Trivisonno she's kind of the lead on lakefront development, said the convention center has to work around the land bridge, not the other way around.

Yeah.

There is, though, an agreement that was signed in 2010 between both governments, the county and the city, that says they do have to work together.

Right.

They signed an agreement basically saying, hey, both of us would want to expand north from here.

So if either of, either of us do anything, we need to come to some sort of agreement.

So, you know, this is a long legal agreement.

There might be things that they litigate out of that.

But I mean, I think the hope is that they just find a way to come together because they've already agreed that they need to find a compromise on these things.

And what happens next with this?

We have the, the reveal later this month.

We have a reveal later this month, and then we're gonna have to wait and see.

You know, when David Gilbert talked to Steve Litt, he didn't reveal how they would pay for this convention center.

They we don't know about the Homeland Security concerns and going over the railroad.

So we're gonna have to wait and see what the city and county do.

Okay.

In an effort to keep grocery stores open after the closing of downtown Heinen's store, Cleveland is proposing a tax incentive that will reward grocers for retaining jobs, not just creating them.

And Sean, usually it's the job retention credit that you get, or job creation credit that you get, because you're bringing in new employees to a city.

What we're seeing here is with groceries leaving, they're saying, listen, if you just retain your employees, we're gonna give you a tax break on that.

Right.

This is so most of the time when the city's giving out some sort of incentive, they're using the promise of future tax dollars, like tax increment financing, you don't have a building there, you will build it.

We're gonna have all these new property tax dollars so we can divert something to you without affecting the city's budget.

Here the city's saying, these are taxes we already collect.

We're willing to give these up and take the hit in the budget because we want to keep these good food retailers, as they call 'em.

Yeah.

And it's important.

You talk about these food deserts, you talk about places where they don't have access to decent food, and that gets into the definition of who might qualify for this.

It has to be a place that offers decent fare.

There's a rubric, so you have to prove you have financial need, you can't have any current city code violations, and then there's a rubric where they, they ask, do you have fresh food, you know, produce, meat, and dairy?

Do you pay your employees more than minimum wage?

Do you have a program where you maybe donate unused food to local food pantries?

So, you know, there's maybe 10 or 15 things they might grade you on.

You don't have to do every single thing, But you have to be certified as what they'd consider a good food retailer or somebody that is a high-quality grocer.

So council still needs to talk this through and make a decision on it?

Council still needs to talk this through.

And I talked to Councilman Richard Starr.

He has been really pushing for a strategy on grocery stores ever since the Heinen's downtown closed.

And he said, you know, this might be a good thing, but it might not be enough.

He said grocery stores have thin margins.

They have a lot of challenges.

He wants to learn more about this proposal, but he's not convinced that this alone is going to solve the issue.

All right, we're on a roll with this Sean block here, so we're gonna keep going.

Cleveland Mayor Justin Bibb, we alluded to this earlier, will lead a new coalition of 15 Democratic mayors across 11 Republican-controlled states.

Let's talk about this.

What is it?

So this is, he calls it Blue Cities, Red States.

They launched or maybe relaunched this week in an event in Miami.

It's the mayor and 14 other mayors in other Democrat-run cities that are in historically red or purple states.

So like the new mayor in Miami was part of this.

She recently flipped the mayor's seat there.

The Columbus mayor is part of this, Atlanta's mayor.

And I think he's trying to paint the picture of we're Democrats in a place that's blue, but we often have to work with more moderate Republicans.

And the mayor often likes to talk about cities as the place where solutions come up.

He really likes to talk about this idea that like places like Cleveland are where the rubber hits the road and you're finding solutions to people's problems.

And he's talking about the radical center.

That's what he's defining that as.

He's trying to go to the radical center.

He's done other events with another moderate group called the Third Way, and he's trying to say like, look, us more moderate Democrats are the pragmatists who get things done.

What do people think when they that you've talked to when they see this?

Do they think that the mayor is trying to gain some more national influence?

What is the What is the end goal from him there and how does it benefit Cleveland?

I think he is trying to at least build more of a national platform.

He was also the chair of the Democratic Mayors Association, so this isn't necessarily new for him.

What's really interesting to me is when this story first came out in ABC News, a lot of people who supported the mayor in 2021 were texting me, I thought this guy was a progressive.

And at the time we said, Bibb is a progressive.

His opponent, Kevin Kelley, is more of the moderate.

So it is just interesting to me to see how the labels change 4 years later.

Absolutely.

Well, thanks for dropping by, Sean, giving us some update from the stories on your beat.

Thanks for having me.

Appreciate that.

And you can check out Sean's story in The Reporter's Notebook.

It's an essay that he wrote on our website, ideastream.org.

It's tying the lessons from Ted Lasso into the foreign world he finds himself in transitioning from newspapers to public media.

It's a journey that I myself have made.

I think You've made it as well, Conor.

Indeed.

Yeah.

So great, great piece.

I encourage you to check that out, ideastream.org.

Conor, Zaria, and Karen will stay with me as we have plenty more to talk about, including an end to the strike by workers at Cleveland Clinic Lutheran Hospital.

And now here's Sound of Ideas host Stephanie Haney to preview what we'll bring you next week on The Sound of Ideas on 89.7 WKSU and streaming on our Ohio Channel.

Hey, Steph.

Hey there, Mike.

Here's what we have coming up next week on The Sound of Ideas.

We're starting things off on Monday looking at a brand new comedy special that deals with mental health.

It comes from Northeast Ohio comedian Deena Nyer Mendlowitz, and this special was actually first performed while she was a patient at a psychiatric ward in a mental health facility.

Also on Monday, we'll hear my conversation with Ohio's 7th Congressional District Democratic candidate Brian Poindexter.

He's challenging Republican Congressmember Max Miller.

Miller has declined to speak with us on The Sound of Ideas for an interview.

On Tuesday, we'll bring you my conversations with 2 of the remaining candidates for U.S.

Senate for Ohio, Libertarian Bill Redpath and independent candidate Greg Levy.

We already shared with you our conversation with Democratic candidate Sherrod Brown.

Republican candidate and incumbent Jon Husted has not responded to our efforts to reschedule an interview.

Wednesday, we'll bring you a warning from health officials who say that they have detected a new synthetic opioid that's stronger than fentanyl and harder to detect because it doesn't show up on standard drug tests.

And we'll round things out on Thursday looking at proficiency testing across the country for students grades 3 through 8.

With those test scores showing a decline across the country, we'll talk about what's happening here in Ohio.

Back to you in the studio, Mike.

Thank you, Steph.

Appreciate that.

And you're back with the Sound of Ideas Reporters Roundtable from Ideastream Public Media.

I'm Ideastream's editor-in-chief, Mike McIntyre.

I'm joined by Ideastream's Conor Morris and Zaria Johnson.

Ideastream's Statehouse News Bureau chief, Karen Kasler, is with us in Columbus.

And did you take the news quiz yet?

You should.

It's fun.

You can find it on our website at ideastream.org/quiz.

A little bit of feedback from our discussion earlier about the gas tax, this from Michael.

He says, why are we even talking about this as anything more than a stunt by Republicans to get votes?

It's a drop in the bucket.

It's gonna save American families maybe one utility bill in the next 90 days.

Pretty insignificant when you think about what's going on with our economy.

And that's Michael in Akron.

You can join us as well.

By sending email to soi@ideastream.org.

I check those out throughout the show.

Akron Mayor Shammas Malik is urging voters to reject 2 proposed city charter amendments aimed at aiding renters.

A community group behind the measures says the mayor didn't work with them on the proposals before coming out against what they proposed.

And Conor, what would the housing amendments change?

Let's get into it.

Sure.

So Issue 11 would prohibit landlords from charging application fees, and it would require them to let tenants pay security deposits in installments.

So over the next 3 to 6 months, basically, It also criminalizes charging those application fees, so it actually becomes a 4th-degree misdemeanor.

And then Issue 12, kind of a companion piece to it.

These are all around kind of this idea of progressive idea of housing as a human right.

Issue 12 would prohibit landlords from rejecting a tenant based on their criminal record.

And there's a couple exceptions.

It's in cases involving arsonists or sex offenders, but still, if somebody is convicted of a violent crime, they still that would prohibit discrimination against renting to them.

And then in general, this is from this Freedom BLOC group, which is a Black-led social justice activist group.

They've put these on the ballot.

Okay.

So the mayor then comes out and says, hey, I know these are on the ballot, but I don't support there are 3 issues on the ballot.

One he's noncommittal on regarding the Community Police Commission.

But these 2, he's come out and said you shouldn't do it.

What's his reasoning for that?

Yeah, he said that they he believes that they create more problems than they would solve.

He said they don't take into account potential negative impacts on landlords, but also tenants.

And he says that these should be debated with the public and city council.

He it sounds like he wants this solution around discrimination against potential tenants and renting toward folks basically to come from the city council and from the city government rather than from a charter amendment on the ballot.

And so the folks who pushed this, Freedom BLOC, they're not feeling good about that because there was a process where the mayor could have weighed in while they were putting this together.

They went out and got signatures, they put it on the ballot, and then at that point, the mayor says, not such a great idea.

Yeah, they had said that representatives from the group had said essentially that we were the mayor had his chance to really provide feedback on this, and we didn't really come to a kind of central point of agreement before they, I guess, just went ahead and went out and started to collect signatures.

Okay.

All right.

Well, we'll keep an eye on that story.

Another story, this one's breaking just yesterday, about 200 union employees at Lutheran Hospital have reached a new deal with the Cleveland Clinic after more than 2 weeks on strike.

So Conor, what does the new contract include?

Yeah, so this is the general hospital on West 25th Street that folks would know in Ohio City.

There's a nearly 11% increase in wage over the next 3 years.

There's this longevity increase as well for folks who have more tenure with the system.

A couple of other benefits as well.

There's also stronger protections for the union's right to bargain throughout the life of this contract as well.

And again, as you said, they were on strike for 2 weeks.

So these were real sticking points for them.

And how many employees are we talking about?

We're talking about 200 folks.

And then there was a portion of them that were not on strike, a small portion.

I believe it was like a third or so that were still working during the duration of the strike.

Yeah, that's actually not small, a third of your union members.

It was just an interesting when you think about a strike, it's everybody leaves.

In this case, it was a little bit different than that.

Some decided to continue working, some were striking.

Yeah, there were some complaints about the fact that the contract in general, they're lower paid than other hospital workers as well.

But they did get a contract.

They are agreed.

We've seen this play out with the public library as well.

It seems to be in the news a lot lately.

Absolutely.

And we're seeing it kind of across the country.

Of course, people feel squeezed by rising costs of groceries and everything else.

And they say folks say that standard of living and average pay has not increased to rise with that, basically.

So.

Right.

Akron Public Schools has moved high school football games to Saturday mornings over concerns about violence.

Police said multiple fights broke out at a football game last Friday night.

So let's start with that.

Conor, what happened at that October 2nd game?

Yeah, so police say that there were fights that broke out inside the stadium at Ellet Community Learning Center and then also outside as well, probably like kind of 2 to 3-ish kind of hotspots essentially.

And they said it was adults, it was current students, and also some students from outside the district as well who were getting into these fights.

And they actually ended up canceling this football game at halftime because of these.

And there was a pretty big police response.

Tons of cruisers that you saw in that video there from body cam footage that we reviewed.

Officers arrested one 36-year-old man, and then they list a 15-year-old boy as a suspect as well.

So we're not entirely sure where, where the state of the investigation lies at this point.

So the idea of moving to Saturday morning is the daylight, the time of day, it's better than the environment on a Friday night?

Yeah, exactly.

And some folks might argue, well, that's not really going to change much, but they say, you know, it creates a safer environment.

Folks might not be acting as wild on a Saturday morning in the daylight versus on a Friday evening.

Whereas other folks say, it looks like you're penalizing a whole group of people just based on the actions of a few, you know.

And if I could say this too, Mike, we've seen a lot of headlines in this country in general about fights breaking out at football games, high school football games and high school sporting events.

In recent years.

It seems like there's more.

And actually found a survey of coaches or not coaches, but, of officiates, of referees at these games who say they believe that sportsmanship has gotten worse since before the pandemic.

That this was an interview, a survey of like tens of thousands of these folks, of these referees who said among spectators, coaches, and even players, sportsmanship's gotten a lot worse.

People are just not really treating these things.

But also It does go back a long time, the idea of a parent getting into a fight with a coach, for example.

They didn't like the play.

Or tackling a referee.

I saw that one online.

Exactly.

So this is a long-lived thing, but also there seems to be new, I guess, issues with this and could be related to mental health issues, you know, any number of things going on in this country nowadays.

In the effort to keep things safe at the football games before this ban on Friday night games, there were other measures that were put into place.

There were restrictions on who could come to the game.

Yeah, they had already restricted it to students who attend at one of the schools that's playing, or if you're not one of those students, then you have to have an adult guardian with you with an ID.

And the city the school district is also saying, we're looking at our own security procedures around this because maybe we weren't enforcing that as strictly as we might maybe should have been.

All right, we got basketball season coming.

Exactly, and they're going to be looking into what they might do with those games in the future as well.

Okay.

Akron has worked for years and spent $1 billion trying to comply with a federal clean water consent decree.

It's now on the verge of approval to skip another major expense, a $300 million sewage treatment facility that it says wouldn't have helped much.

The city reached an agreement with the state and federal environmental protection agencies, and a federal judge needs to sign off, Zaria.

So, uh, let's talk about this.

This facility has been discussed forever.

They've thinking, okay, this is going to be a big one to swallow.

And they've been saying we need to get out of it.

They finally got the EPA to agree.

Yeah.

And it says something about the work that the city of Akron has accomplished so far since being under this consent decree in 2014 to address its combined sewer overflow systems.

That really would be a move to improve water quality in the Cuyahoga River and Lake Erie and Northeast Ohio overall, because combined sewer overflow systems, they carry both wastewater and stormwater during heavy rain events.

But when the storm is really bad, it can sort of overwhelm that system.

And so then both the sewage and the stormwater then discharge into rivers, streams, whatever this sort of wherever the discharge point is.

By the way, we know a lot about that in Cleveland.

We've been working for years on our own consent decree.

Akron is not alone in this by any means.

Cleveland's been building retention tunnels and all of that to try to keep the sewage from pouring directly into the lake.

That's one of the things Akron's still going to do is a retention tunnel.

So that this facility is part of the proposal for that consent decree to sort of treat the sewage in an effort to, you know, continue that work.

But City of Akron is saying that they've accomplished, I believe, 24 of the 26 projects outlined in the consent decree already.

And so they're saying that by foregoing this facility, they'll be able to save money and do more work, kind of pivot focus to other, other areas as they continue the work on both sewage, this combined sewage overflow systems, and the drinking water system.

So the idea is, you said 24 of the 26, they spent like a billion dollars already.

Yeah.

This last 2 big projects, one was this interceptor tunnel, which they're going to build.

The other was this treatment plant, which they then said, listen, that thing would only be used maybe 3 times a year.

Right.

Yeah.

So how are they going to fix it instead?

If you don't have that plant, what can you do to make sure the water's cleaner?

S they will disinfect water treatment 2 more times, 2 more, 2 extra months a year.

I think it was April and November.

And they're also saying that they'll work to meet EPA-approved bacterial limits for wastewater discharge to better protect people who recreate on the river.

And they're saying that doing these things are less expensive and more effective than this $300 million facility, like you said, that will only be used 3 times a year and allow the city to shift its focus to drinking water systems while they continue to sort of wrap up these 26 projects, 25 projects, I assume.

And the federal judge on the consent decree has to sign off on this.

There's a 30-day period before that can happen.

Yeah, 30-day public comment period so the public can weigh in on whether or not they think this is the right move.

And then, yes, this project can't or I guess skipping this project can't move forward without approval from the court.

Okay.

Let's move on to Ohio receiving more than $13 million from the federal government to fund a program that will provide home visit services for moms and their kids, new moms.

Karen, how expensive is the program?

What services will be offered?

What's going on with, with trying to improve maternal health?

Well, the overall investment is $525 million.

So half a billion dollars overall from the federal government here, and Ohio gets $13.5 million of that, as you said.

And this is a program that's designed to reach 26 out of 88 counties.

But I think it's The idea is for it to go eventually statewide here.

And there are 103 full-time staff on board here.

And it's really just kind of in-home services, but also not just in-home services for new moms, but apparently moms can say, hey, I'd rather meet at McDonald's, I'd rather meet at the library or at the park or something like that.

And the people come to the moms.

And so that makes it just potentially a more useful and easier to access program.

Is it like an education program?

Are they there to sort of offer some counsel and advice, or what specifically are the services that they'll be providing?

All that.

I think the whole idea is to offer, you know, pregnancy and postpartum care as well as infant resources, but also just, you know, to answer questions, to be a support system.

I mean, Ohio has really struggled with its infant mortality rate over the years, and while Ohio has done better, our infant mortality rate is still higher than the national average.

So this is just really trying to reach that population and reach any new mom and just to try to answer some questions and offer reassurance and offer resources when necessary.

Yeah, 10th highest in the state in terms of infant mortality.

And we've done these stories across the state and particularly in Cleveland as well, talking with Birthing Beautiful Communities and others, that the disparity is great, that the maternal, the death rate for newborns in Cleveland in Black neighborhoods much worse than it is in others.

Yeah, and the state had had a program as well.

When Governor Mike DeWine came into office, he wanted to do some of these in-home visits and put that in the budget, and that was actually increased in the last budget.

The state program that kind of does something similar here, but once again, the whole goal is to try to help support these new moms and make sure that their kids make it to their first birthday.

Cleveland Clinic Children's is now screening newborns for a virus that can cause hearing loss in infants.

It's called cytomegalovirus.

Or CMV, and it's not all that uncommon.

So, Conor, I was surprised to see this number that when I looked at it, I thought, okay, it must be this rare virus they're finding that might affect the hearing of children.

A third have likely have the virus.

Now, not everybody then develops the complications as a result.

Yes, it's one of those viruses that people carry in their body.

So around 1 in 3 children have it, and most adults have it, often without symptoms.

And it's spread through bodily fluids, especially saliva, Health officials recommend kids in daycare don't share drinks or utensils in general to kind of prevent the spread.

For infants, it can cause serious hearing loss in one or both ears and then developmental disabilities.

It can occasionally be fatal.

It's believed that each year around 1 in 200 US newborns are born with congenital CMV.

That's what they call it.

So who's the Cleveland Clinic testing?

All newborns?

What's the plan?

Yeah, they're now screening all babies in intensive care and then they're gonna target other at-risk newborns as well for testing.

It's usually done within the first 3 weeks of birth so clinicians can tell whether it's congenital or whether it was picked up from contact or from another source.

And if they're positive, then what happens?

Yeah, so there is an antiviral drug.

I'm not gonna say the name.

It's a long name, but it's used to treat it in infants, although there can be some pretty serious side effects.

All right, I'm gonna give it a try.

Valganciclovir.

Valganciclovir, maybe.

Yeah, who knows?

We'd have to see it at the end of a commercial with people walking in the sunshine.

Yes, of course.

Yeah.

Yeah, and the American Academy of Pediatrics recently endorsed the procedure, which is kind of why the Cleveland Clinic is moving in this direction.

Got it.

Great.

The US Department of Energy will issue a $4.2 billion federal loan to help 3 nuclear power plants operated by the company Vistra, including Perry in Lake County, upgrade and modernize their facilities.

The other facilities are Davis-Besse in northwest Ohio and Beaver Valley in Pennsylvania.

The goal is to add 433 megawatts of new electricity to the region's power grid.

And it's coming at a time when people have major concerns, Zaria, about the rising cost of data centers and the, the need for energy to fuel them.

This is a big investment by the federal government.

Yeah, federal officials are saying that these upgrades would improve reliability and lower cost of electricity in the 13 states served by the PJM interconnection, and that includes Ohio.

But the press release didn't include any estimate on the savings for customers or how much of that pool of funding each plant would receive.

So we don't know just yet how much money the Perry plant, for example, will get and what that'll mean for our customers here in Northeast Ohio.

But the expectation is that it'll bring 400,000 megawatts more to, to the 13 states.

So they need to be modernized in order for that to happen.

There needs to be upgrades.

By the way, it's Vistra, that's the company.

They bought it in 2024.

We've always talked about FirstEnergy, but they're not owners of that anymore.

It's not a done deal at this point?

No, the federal loan still isn't finalized.

Vistra needs to meet federal legal, technical, financial, and environmental requirements.

Requirements first, and then the Department of Energy will sign off, you know, if those requirements are met, then the Department of Energy will sign off on the financing agreements and provide Vistra with the funding.

And the Perry plant specifically, uh, its current license is it would operate through 2046.

Would there be some extension that's being talked about as a result?

Yes.

So if the plan is approved, then, uh, the plant would be allowed to operate through 2066, and, uh, the generating capacity at the Perry plant could increase to more than 200 megawatts, which is enough to serve about 150,000 Okay, quick correction to what we were talking about earlier, Conor.

It's a quarter that did not go on strike in the at least I think we said a third.

I meant to correct myself.

Yeah, so a quarter of those employees, which still is a pretty significant number for sure.

I want to give some feedback too to a lot of people are still talking about the gas tax.

And so Carrie sends a note saying, if someone is in a position to afford an electric vehicle in the first place, is a tax rebate really going to be that significant in the overall scheme of things?

Some EV owners might not think it's fair, but nobody said life was fair.

And that's Carrie's point of view.

We also have Bill who says, I do not object to not getting a tax rebate for my electric car because I don't use gas in the first place.

What I do object to is the blunt force, the way Ohio imposes road fees, road use fees on electric and hybrid cars through registration and application fees.

And that's what Bill's point of view is.

Again, you can share yours on any of the topics we're talking about.

By sending email to soi@ideastream.org.

Central Ohio will be home to the state's largest international healthcare project in the next few years.

German pharmaceutical biotechnology company Bayer is bringing a whopping $2.2 billion investment to the region in the form of a processing and manufacturing plant.

It's projected to create a lot of jobs too.

And Karen, will it be all, uh, little baby aspirin?

I think they're talking about other drugs as well, talking about drugs that would treat cancer and heart disease.

And so I, I guess a variety of drugs here.

It's the largest international healthcare investment in Ohio history.

And so this is kind of a big deal here.

Yeah.

Is the state helping to fund it?

How are they attracting Bayer to put this money into Ohio?

Well, you know, it was kind of confusing at the event because Governor Mike DeWine was there with a couple other people from Bayer and from JobsOhio, and he said that JobsOhio Ohio was giving $30 million to this, but actually it's more like that JobsOhio is committing money, $30 million, to a training facility.

And then there's this other Ohio Life Sciences that is also raising $30 million for equipment and operations.

So there's a lot of, of money movement going around here.

We don't know all the details yet.

The Ohio Tax Credit Authority will also deal with this at some point.

But yeah, there's, there's some state investment here, of course.

Follow the money, Karen.

Absolutely.

Okay, very good.

What's the timeline of this project, by the way?

I think that we're talking about mid-2027.

So middle of next year really getting started.

So this is anticipated to move pretty quickly.

Yeah, we heard it was going to be pretty quick with the Intel plant too, and haven't seen that yet.

So you just hope this isn't that same kind of announce and delay.

That's a very good point.

And I think that on Intel, it really had to do with the pandemic, the slowdown in manufacturing of chips and that sort of thing.

So, but this is hopefully, at least for this project, on track to start construction in 2027.

All right, very good.

Several hundred students at East Technical High School in Cleveland walked out of class this week to protest the planned transfer of 4 teachers.

So Conor, this happens every year, it seems they have to rebalance and see where teachers are needed.

But these students have had these teachers now for a few weeks and they're attached to them.

Yeah, and I mean, some of the students for several years at this point, since they're, as they're kind of cycling through.

Oh, right.

And we see sometimes students protest this and teachers protest this.

It happens at a lot of our bigger city school districts where the first couple weeks to a couple months of a fall semester, there's a lot of transition.

There's a lot of students moving around, families, getting to new residence or, you know, just kind of figuring out where they're gonna be staying for the year.

And so enrollment fluctuates.

And so districts naturally have to change up how many teachers are in a building.

And so, but still these students, I mean, it was a pretty massive display of all, you know, several hundred of them in this building are walking out.

And some might say, okay, so CMSD, Cleveland Schools, they just consolidated a bunch of schools this year.

Was this due to that?

And the district says, no, this is part of a normal process.

And so we didn't transfer any more teachers than usual this year.

But still, the students said, hey, we also have some new students coming into this building because of the consolidation plan from MC Squared High School, which was closed by the district.

And these new students are gonna be missing out on part of what made this building great, which is the teachers who helped us pass our state tests, who we've come to know and love.

And, you know, whenever there's a transition in education, disrupt kids' test scores and just achievement in general.

So when school districts, larger school districts are forced to do this, it does cause issues.

And so there is a bit of a newsy angle here, Mike, I would say, in terms of if they did not have to transition teachers, if they had steady enrollments, if they had a steady budget, you know, would they need to do this?

Probably not.

And would test scores be a little bit better in some of those buildings if there because consistent teachers, consistent programming, you know, throughout the years, maybe.

One thing, when I saw this, I actually was kind of encouraged.

The idea that you would have several hundred students just a few weeks into the school year march in support of the teachers that they have.

I mean, clearly there's a connection that's being made by these teachers with those students.

Absolutely.

And it was really sweet, actually.

The teachers who were being transferred out, the students all surrounded them and gave them a giant bear hug.

Group hug.

So it was really sweet.

And actually the district said when I talked to them like, hey, you know, we're sorry that we had to do this.

It is unfortunate.

And we actually are proud of these students for voicing their opinion.

You know, we want to be active, you know, participants in society.

So.

Great.

If you're in a vehicle in Ohio and police ask for your ID, even if you're not driving, Ohio law now says you must produce it.

And interfering with an arrest in any way will also get you in trouble.

Karen, let's talk about this new law.

What, what is it laying out and what problem was it trying to solve?

It is trying to solve the problem of people refusing to identify themselves to police officers during a traffic stop or law enforcement in general.

There were people who, according to the sponsors of the bill, that just refused to answer, refused to respond as to who they were, claiming they were sovereign citizens, things like this.

And so this is an attempt to kind of go around that by saying that it is illegal to resist, hinder, obstruct, or abuse any officer attempting to arrest someone for a violation and makes it illegal for anyone inside a vehicle to refuse to disclose their name, address, and date of birth.

I guess I'm the target on this because my social media feed is full of people refusing to identify themselves to police.

Yeah, and mainly they're using constitutional grounds.

Do you suspect me of a crime?

If you don't, I'm not going to identify myself.

But what Ohio is saying is if you're stopped by a police officer, you got to identify yourself.

The idea is that you're in a vehicle they need to know.

Yeah, Ohio is now one of 10 states that requires this, and that whole idea of people kind of acting as their own attorney and taking legal advice from social media, I think, is one of the things that kind of got the sponsors of this to say, hey, we, we really want to pass this law and make this a requirement so that police officers can go ahead and, and ask these questions.

But there were critics who said it went too far, it could open up, uh, law enforcement to lawsuits and things like that.

So this has been kind of a controversial piece of legislation.

Okay, well, I'm glad no one here what I hear on those videos all the time, which is, I don't answer questions.

Thank you guys for answering questions.

I appreciate it.

As a journalist, our job is to, yeah, ask and answer.

And on this show, to answer them as well.

Yeah.

All right.

On January 1st, Ohio's minimum wage will increase to $11.40 an hour to account for inflation.

It had been $11.

So, a $0.40 raise per hour full-time, still not enough, critics say.

So how much is the increase?

We talked about this.

It's a percentage, some 3-something percent.

Yeah, it's 3.5% increase from that current $11 minimum wage.

The state constitution, thanks to an amendment passed in 2006, requires the minimum wage be based on the inflation rate.

And so the based on last year's inflation rate between September 1st, 2025 through August 31st of this year, the Consumer Price Index rose 3.5%.

So that's what led to the 3.5% increase on the minimum wage.

Yeah.

And I mean, it sounds like that makes sense and you tie it to inflation.

But I do have to say, I looked at it and I thought, if I'm a minimum wage worker and they now tell me I'm getting $11.40 instead of $11, when there was a statewide push that didn't succeed in making it $15.

Yes.

The question is if it's enough.

What, what is a full-time minimum wage worker going to make at $11.40 an hour?

Yeah, so they're going to be making about 2 sorry, I'm really bad with numbers.

I knew I was going to struggle with it.

$23,712 for the year.

And that's still about $3,600 below the 2026 federal poverty poverty level for a family of 3, and that's according to Policy Matters Ohio.

So some advocates, like you said, Mike, are saying this increase is a good thing, but it's likely not going to do much for the standard of living for people who are making minimum wage day to day.

And hourly wages for tipped workers is significantly lower.

Usually it's only $5.70 an hour, but employers are supposed to be making up the difference if tips don't boost pay to that $11.40 an hour And there's a living wage in Cleveland that's different from this.

Yeah, exactly.

The living wage is $16.26 per hour, and that's for city employees or contractors with the city.

And I was just going to say, what some argue is a living wage in Ohio is like $21 an hour, which is about $43,680 a year.

So there's all sorts of different calculations going on here, but that's enough to be able to afford an apartment and food and things like that.

So yeah, and Karen, there was an effort, as I mentioned earlier, to get a minimum wage of $15.

I saw people collecting signatures and stuff, but that didn't get to the ballot, did it?

No, it did not.

And in fact, we're trying to find out exactly what happened because that was it sounded like it was close.

They kept telling us it was close, and then it just kind of disappeared.

Right.

All right.

The city of Kent is asking voters to renew an existing income tax levy on the November ballot to cover rising costs for safety and other city services.

We've heard a lot, and you cover a lot about school levies.

Oh yeah.

And property taxes.

But here we're talking about an income tax levy.

What is Kent saying?

Originally, I think it was to build a fire station or something of that nature, but they're saying they still need the money.

Yeah, they call me Mr.

Tax, Mike.

Is that what they call you?

This levy was supposed to be sunset in 2038 after the building debt for building those, the new police station was settled.

But the city saw higher than expected job and income tax growth, which means the debt for the new safety center is, should be paid off at the end of this year actually.

So they're saying we're going to use this to actually, if voters greenlight this proposal of course, we would add 3 new firefighters, 3 new police officers, and then create a new year-round dedicated street repair crew.

And they'd also do some new parks and rec programs and facilities for Kent residents also.

They're already going to be paying it through 2038.

This is extending it.

The, what happened If the if it's not passed, have they said what will happen as a result of that?

They said that the income tax revenue will stay with the police department and then it'll just be funneled into the police facility fund.

But if they've already got a new police station, then it's like, what are they going to use it for?

Who knows?

I might have said fire station.

I think I meant police station.

Oh, you're fine.

Yeah.

Okay, good.

Thank you.

Appreciate that.

President Donald Trump will be back in Ohio for another rally this coming Monday, October 12th.

This is his second appearance in the state in less than 2 weeks as Republicans and Democrats fight for control over significant state vacancies including governor and the U.S.

Senate seats.

And Karen, I wonder if this time in the Youngstown area it'll be like or it'll be like in the Youngstown area where he wanted people, the media particularly, arrested because they didn't estimate the size of the crowd big enough.

Well, I, I don't know what we can expect from these rallies other than I think we'll probably see President Trump in Ohio one more time before the actual election.

I mean, these this is these visits to Republican states are really interesting at this time because Obviously midterm elections tend to favor the party that's out of power, but I, it certainly suggests that Republicans are very worried that Trump is going to states where he won and won significantly in 2024 to try to shore up support.

Right.

I said Youngstown.

He was actually in Vandalia near Dayton on Saturday, and now he's going to, to this, to this next spot.

Who's he, who's he stumping for?

Those are, okay.

Go ahead.

Well, I mean, those are 2 of his favorite spots.

He's come to both those places as well as Toledo a couple of different times.

So, Southwest Ohio in particular has been a place that he's wanted to come to.

I mean, when he was in Vandalia, he was really stumping for Senator Jon Husted, but Vivek Ramaswamy, the Republican candidate for governor, was also there along with some other folks who are on the ticket as Republican candidates.

So I think it's kind of open for anybody, but obviously Husted is a big a candidate that Republicans really want to see reelected because they're trying to hold on to the Senate.

Okay.

Final story today, bat-human interactions are on the rise, leading to rabies concerns from state health officials as more bats have been found to have rabies this year.

Zaria, it's important to note humans are not being found to have rabies.

But if they're finding more bats with rabies, it stands to reason that there's more possibility of interaction and rabies cases.

Right.

And we're it's too early to say exactly why we might be seeing more of these bat-human interactions.

But a couple theories are that bat numbers were decimated over the last few years and now are starting to stabilize.

And also bats like to hide out in warm places during the fall and winter months like houses.

So the bats could be coming to us and that could be leading to some more of these interactions.

So we don't see a lot of rabies cases though, right?

No, no, no.

In Cuyahoga County, 107 bats were sent in for testing so far.

That is more than double in a typical year, but only 5 bats in Cuyahoga County have actually tested positive, and that's still double the normal amount, but it's only 5 so far this year.

And no human rabies cases since like 1970.

Yeah, and I think nationally there are about 100,000 people a year who get treatment after encountering a rabid animal, but again, in Ohio, the last one was in 1970, so we've been doing pretty good, I think.

Yeah, for sure.

And other kinds of bats, kind of cute ones maybe?

I don't know, straw-colored fruit bats are gonna be at the Columbus Zoo.

Yeah, a different kind of bat.

I'm sure they're safer.

You know, they're gonna be an enclosure as well, but they're from different zoos.

You can't pet them.

You can't touch them.

So it's probably best for everybody.

There are 8 females from a zoo in Boston, 3 males from a zoo in Arizona, and 2 others from a zoo in New York.

And they're all at the Columbus Zoo now.

Awesome.

Very good.

Thank you.

Appreciate your input today.

Appreciate both of you guys for being here.

And Sean too, who had to take off and go cover some news.

Yeah.

Conor Morris and Zaria Johnson and Karen Kasler as well.

Go Guards.

Go Guardians.

Let's do this thing.

Let's do it.

All right.

If you missed any part of today's show, you can check it out online.

You can go see the rebroadcast or listen to the rebroadcast tonight at 9 on 89.7 WKSU.

Access the podcast or check out the Ideastream Public Media YouTube page.

Catch the television version show tonight at 5 on WVIZ PBS.

Monday on The Sound of Ideas, Deena Nyer Mendelowitz blends comedy, mental health, and advocacy in her new special, Shrimp Catcher, which was originally performed during her time in a psychiatric facility.

I'm Mike McIntyre.

Thank you so much for listening and watching, and stay safe.

The Who's rock opera Tommy opened this week at Playhouse Square and runs through this Sunday.

So for our closing song today, here's Pinball Wizard by The Who.