(music begins) - The progressive field renovation deal and guardians lease extension, won't be getting a quick rubber stamp.

The director of the Ohio department of health says the current wave of COVID-19 cases appears to be cresting.

And Cleveland's longest serving mayor delivers his final state of the city address.

Ideas is next.

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(slow piano playing) (orchestral music playing) - Hello, and welcome to ideas.

I'm Mike McIntyre.

Thanks for joining us.

Cleveland leaders say, selling constituents on the idea of a $435 million renovation of progressive field, which comes with a lease extension for the guardians might be difficult.

They want answers about how it will benefit residents.

It appears we're turning the corner and the current surge in COVID 19 cases.

The first good news on the pandemic in a while.

And Cleveland's longest serving mayor says during his final state of the city address that he's finished his leg of the relay, and is ready to hand off the Baton.

We'll talk about all of that and much more on this episode of the reporters round table.

Joining me this week from idea stream public media, host and producer Glenn Forbes, from WKSU reporter Kabir Bhatia, and in Columbus statehouse news bureau chief Karen Kasler.

Let's get ready to round table.

Committees for Cleveland and Cuyahoga county councils, We'll take some time to consider the public private partnership proposal that would renovate progressive field and extend the lease of Cleveland's major league baseball team.

The guardians.

It's a $435 million deal that involves funds from the city county state and team, lease extension would be roughly, at least through 2036.

Cleveland city council members say, this won't be a rubber stamp emergency passage.

They want proof it'll benefit their constituents and say, it may be a tough sell.

Glen, it seems like it's Groundhog day because every time there is a anything about the queue or rocket mortgage field house, or the brown stadium, first energy stadium, I always get these old names in it or progressive field.

- [Glenn] Jacob's field.

- [Mike] Jacob's field.

Thank you.

All of those end up being the things where we have discussion and is it good for residents?

And then eventually they pass.

In this case, we're hearing early from Cleveland city council members that are saying, okay, you're going to have to put cash on the barrelhead.

We need to hear what the evidence is that residents will benefit from this a little bit different this time?

- [Glenn] I certainly think the framing of this is different as you alluded to, we've had tough talk from some council members before, but it never really went anywhere.

I honestly think the pandemic puts this in, in a brand new perspective, and Councilman Brian Casey mentioned that, you know, earlier that day, when this went to finance committee.

First, I should mention that there were some council members Charles Slife Ward 17, who thought that maybe this was going to be voted by on for the full council on Monday.

There was some sort of procedural, I don't know if it was an error or just a, a formatting thing or whatever that it appeared like it was going to go to the full council on Monday, that that, didn't happen.

- [Mike] Yeah.

He was alarm.

Because he sent out tweets saying, oh my gosh, this might be passed already on Monday and I'm a no, if that's the case.

- [Glenn] I've seen nothing formal on this.

No one's reached out to me about it.

You know, so that was an issue.

And we did come to find out that Monday, this would go to finance committee, it would go to development committee, would go back to finance committee.

So at the finance committee meeting on Monday, Councilman Brian Casey said, you know, earlier this morning, we're giving out our per dollars.

We're giving out rescue act dollars from the pandemic to people who can't afford to feed their families in the same day.

You know, we're going to pass a piece of legislation that gives $8 million to the city's general fund.

Essentially to billionaires.

You know, I got a problem with that.

The Dean of a city council, if you will, Mike Pulaski, somebody who I've talked to many times over the years, never one to shy away from a comment.

He went down the list, Cleveland, number one in poverty, number one in childhood poverty, 4,000 abandoned houses, 104 down to 150 police officers.

Now we're going to be asked again to support a major project for billionaires.

He also mentioned that because he was of course the Councilman in, in the, in the 90s as well when the original, original, gateway project was, was going down.

He said that there were 28,000 jobs that were promised through that project.

And when he talked to one of the promoters years later, he said, well, we knew it was only going to be about 2,800 jobs, not 28,000 but we had to say 28,000 to get it passed.

- [Mike] Here is a question from Ed, who is right on that point.

He says, I'm sorry if this is overly simplistic.

But if council person Pulaski claims are accurate, that developers and sports franchise owners over promised on jobs.

Should not those jobs now be mandated in any federal funded federal or any public refund updates.

- [Glenn] I think that's what they're looking for, I think that's what council wants.

And going back to Councilman Casey, he said, listen at some.

So what happened on Monday was it was, it was Ken Silliman, who's the chairman now of the, of the gateway corporation.

- [Mike] Former chief of staff for the Mayor Jackson.

- [Glenn] Mayor Jackson.

He is now chairman of the gateway corporation.

He was giving most of the, of the presentation.

There were representatives from the team from, from the soon to be guardians there, but they did not speak at this time.

They will, at a later date, there will be more hearings and, and more, you know, meetings about this.

And what Councilman Casey said is you better go come prepared.

You know, you want this done by the end of the year.

That's what I'm hearing.

You want to vote on this by the end of the year, when you have your presentation, us come prepared as far as what the benefits are going to be, you know, for, for the workers, for the neighborhood.

I think everybody understands what the benefit for the organization is going to be.

They're going to get on the city side, $116 million over 15 years, it's a $435 million package.

When you add in the county and the state and all that other stuff.

$116 million from the city over 15 years for infrastructure, improvements, come prepared when you give your presentation about why we should vote for this and why it's so great.

So there's a little more, seems to be a little more resistance than I think it does go back to the fact that we're in a pandemic, and people are hurting.

- [Mike] Kabir, they may come prepared to say, this will create jobs or simply if you want to be a major league city, then you want to have major league baseball, you want to have football, you want to have a basketball team.

That's something that gives Cleveland luster and is a good thing.

But what it sounds like they're looking at specifically is, how is it going to help my residents in my particular ward?

And as Glenn has mentioned, it's a, the highest poverty rate.

One of the council members brought that up.

There are a number of people that can't afford to get into that ballpark.

So if you try to make that argument just about that, it's going to be, it's going to be an interesting sell.

- [Kabir] Interesting sell I think is, is the nice way of putting it.

I'd say, so Yeah, the folks who are coming to ask for this money better be prepared when they come in.

But given what was Pulaski talking about, how high the poverty rate is, childhood poverty.

There's and we saw which we'll talk about in a bit, I'm sure the state of the city, there's a lot of crises right around the corner, according to outgoing Mayor Jackson, when it comes to finances for the city.

So folks who can't even afford to get into the ballpark, it's going to be a very hard sell for them.

We just went through this with the rocket mortgage field house issue and, and the, with the owners, with Dan Gilbert and trying to get that renovated.

We actually just went through renovations at progressive field in 2014, 15.

I don't know if anyone remembers that, but the fact that a lot of residents, not only can they not get into the ballpark, but if you crunch the numbers, the expected economic impact versus the number of people that it brings to downtown, that's predicated on each person comes into town spending about $117 that, you know, in theory at local businesses and, and things that'll benefit residents.

Well, think of what it costs to park downtown for Indians game, guardians game.

Think of what it costs for the ticket.

A lot of that $117 is going right back to the owners of the team.

It's not going to the city.

It's not going to things that would benefit residents.

So on Monday, as I said, you know, come prepared to show us what you're going to do.

I think that they better come prepared.

- [Mike] Karen, let's talk about the state.

Governor DeWine was an advocate for this.

In fact, I think we first got the scoop on the idea that there might be an extension and some sort of deal because he let the cat out of the bag and said, boy, we're hoping to keep the team in town for, for decades to come.

Where does the state, I know the governor obviously is in favor of the state chipping in, but what about lawmakers?

And is this something that has been discussed in Columbus?

- [Karen] It really hasn't been lately.

And I think that's because lawmakers have been looking at other things and things that we'll be discussing later on vaccine exemptions, things like that.

But for right now, this is not a big topic of conversation, but we're also just finishing the state budget.

And then soon we'll start the process of bidding for the capital budget, which is the budget that's done in the other year of the two year budget cycle.

That's the one that awards huge money to community projects, and also can include things like stadiums.

So I can imagine that this is something that will eventually be brought into the discussion on the capital budget.

But you know the question about supporting just the Cleveland baseball team.

What about all the other teams that are out there in Ohio?

I mean, we have two professional football franchises.

We have two professional baseball franchise.

We have a hockey franchise.

I mean, you know, the, these are - [Mike] A Basketball Franchise.

- [Karen] Legitimately other parts of the state could be asking.

- [Mike] You forgot the basketball franchise.

- [Karen] Oh yeah, yeah.

That them too.

But I mean it's, but the, there are other communities that could also say, hey, wait a minute.

You know, Paul Brown stadium in Cincinnati that it's older than on, I think like half of the NFL stadiums.

Nationwide arena in Columbus, there was a report out last year that said it needed huge renovations, like $95 million in renovations.

I mean, there are other facilities that also want the same kind of here.

So I can imagine that that's going to be something that's going to come up for discussion.

If lawmakers do indeed have to approve this deal.

(orchestra playing) - [Mike] The end of an era in Cleveland politics is near.

Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson, the city's longest serving mayor delivered his final state of the city address last night on the day early voting began to choose his successor.

- [Mayor Jackson] When you become Mayor, all of that belongs to you.

No one else, the good, the bad and the opportunity to do your own thing belongs to you, with the knowledge however, that there's a crisis just around the corner.

- [Mike] Dealing with those crises around the corner will be either Kevin Kelly, the council president, whom the mayor has endorsed.

Where Justin bib, the nonprofit executive who garnered the most votes in the mayoral primary last month, Kabir it was a very Jackson speech.

- [Kabir] It was a very Jackson speak, very low key.

He just sort of end the fact that he used the analogy of running a relay.

That's perfect.

Beause so many mayors, at least in my lifetime, when they've left office, they're either on their way to Washington DC or they're leaving and things have not gone well and people are kind of happy to see them go.

So the fact that Jackson is kind of leaving.

He's been here the longest and handing off the Baton and saying, well, I've done a lot of good things.

As far as talking about the schools, which has always hammered home, how important it was with the schools he talked about all that they've done to increase graduation rates, the financial package.

And now he's passing the Baton on and saying, look, we've got, COVID coming up.

We've got all of these issues, the next person, whoever it may be, who he didn't mention either of them, really, even though he's endorsed Kelly, he says whoever of the two of them that it's going to be, these are the things that they're going to have to deal with.

So it was a very sort of, I hate to use the term caretaker mayor, but he's on that.

And he's kind of left us maybe a little bit better than when he got here.

And he pointed that out too.

- [Mike] Glenn, he didn't use specific names, but he did talk, directly about who will be taking over as mayor.

And basically said, if you don't have experience something like that, right?

- [Glenn] So the quote is, he didn't meant, as Kabir said, he didn't mention either candidate by name, but the quote is, first of all, don't play the game before you know the game, because it ain't no chump game.

Learn something before you come here.

So that seemed like a pretty direct shot at a 34 year old Justin bib.

I don't know why he assumes that Justin bib doesn't know anything about the game.

And I guess my question would be, do we want to keep playing the same game over and over again with Kevin Kelly?

I mean, because Kevin Kelly's opponents certainly in the primary.

And I would think Justin bibs going to do the same thing.

I mean, you heard, how many times do you hear Dennis Kucinich say, oh, the Co-Mayor, the Co-Mayor, you own these problems.

So I think this last month, last couple of weeks of, of this campaign, you're going to see that frame more and more.

I also think it's interesting not to get too far into that race, but that Kevin Kelly wants to frame it as the boardroom versus the streets.

When I thought that, actually that might be on the opposite foot that Justin bid might be saying, this is about the boardroom versus the streets.

It's, it's a bit of a confusing race to me, but I will say this about mayor Jackson and, and kind of his legacy.

And I've covered him for about 10 years now in different capacities.

It's complex because obviously, he has done well.

I think for the businesses, but I think the argument is going to be businesses versus neighborhoods.

Right?

Did the development in downtown get better?

Yeah.

Did the neighborhoods get any better?

Well, that's going to be hard to argue when you look at policing in the city, which he also mentioned is, is kind of an upcoming, When you look at violence and policing, that's, that's an ongoing crisis.

We had the consent decree that came around in 2015, when federal government got involved, because we had incidents of police brutality, excessive force, things of that nature.

The police chief during that time was Chief McGrath.

Even though we had all of these incidents that led to the consent decree, Mayor Jackson decided to promote chief McGrath to public safety director.

He also decided to take the, who was the public safety director, Marty flask, and create another position out of thin air and pay him $140,000 to do.

I don't know what.

So you have two guys who are responsible now.

Frank Jackson talked a pretty good game to his constituents.

When it came to the police, he talked about how the police had to operate within a box.

These are his words, he wanted to put the police in a box and he did.

He didn't want them to step outside that box.

But the two people who were in leadership positions, during the incidents led to the consent decree, he promoted them both.

So I'm not sure how he didn't get more, you know, flag for that.

As Kabir said, there is kind of a caretaker angle to Jackson.

Some people called him a sleepy mayor.

He was, he was silent.

There were issues with transparency in this administration as well.

Very difficult to get a comment from city hall, the serial podcast was here.

They found it extremely difficult to get any sort of comment from city hall.

It's where foyer requests go to die.

And I mean, you know, you'd have to be either ignorant, or in his back pocket to suggest all you had to do is pick up the phone and call them to get a comment that just wasn't the case.

(orchestra playing) - [Mike] Ohio department of health director, Dr. Bruce Vanderhoff says, he's cautiously optimistic that the current surgeon COVID 19 cases in Ohio has peaked and is on the down slope.

Karen, the downward trend comes as colder weather approaches.

Is there a concerned people moving indoors would bump the trend back upward.

There's always a give and take in this stuff.

- [Karen] Right.

And that's what happened last year.

As you'll recall, the numbers really started to spike after October when that colder weather hit.

Hospitalizations though, have been going down.

They were at 3,395 yesterday.

They were at a high on September 27th of 3,734.

Now that was way off from the overall high back in December of last year, which was more than 5,300 people hospitalized in Ohio with COVID.

The ICU peak has been following the same thing.

So these numbers are going down.

The overall case numbers are going down.

And so all these are seen as good signs that people are getting vaccinated.

And even as we're moving into that colder weather and as kids continue to go to school, There are more mask mandates now.

than there were at the beginning of the year.

So these are considered to be positive signs, but of course it's not over yet.

And, and that warning has to come through really loudly because that seems to be a warning that a lot of people really didn't get earlier this year when the vaccines were being rolled out and, and people were signing up, but not enough people were signing up.

And so the numbers started to spike again, as the Delta variant went on through the population.

So there's good news here, but it's not over, but at least there's a light at the end of the tunnel.

I think that's something that is really great to hear because we've heard so much bad news over the last, you know, almost two years now.

- [Mike] Let's talk about the numbers because they've been disputed by some, throughout the pandemic that we're over counting that everyone who's in the hospital is getting categorized as having COVID, now the Ohio department of health is going to begin including re-infection numbers in the case counts too, which I would expect would just add another plank to that debate.

- [Karen] Yeah.

And I think that debate is really kind of academic and it's also on the other side, I think there's a good possibility that case numbers are being under counted because there are a lot of people who aren't getting tested, who do have COVID.

There are a lot of people who find out through a home test that they have COVID and that's not reported, these breakthrough infections haven't really been tracked very well.

All of these things lead to questions about whether the number that we look at as the number of confirmed cases and probable cases, if that number is even remotely representative, I mean, you've got medical experts who are saying that by the time this pandemic is eventually over.

I mean, and that could be years from now.

We're hearing almost everybody will have had an exposure to coronavirus and may have developed the disease from it, COVID.

The question is going to be, if you're vaccinated, you're far less likely to get seriously ill, you are far less likely to die.

And that's really been the effort right now is to, to look at that as being the thing that you really pin everything on and, and, and point people to, you do have to acknowledge though, that there are these breakthrough infections, these things do happen, but there's a page of the coronavirus.ohio.gov website.

That specifically notes, how many people have had been hospitalized because of re-infection who were vaccinated and who were not.

And also how many people who died of COVID, who were vaccinated and who were not.

And these numbers are huge.

I mean, overwhelmingly 97% of people who go to the hospital or have died of COVID are not vaccinated.

And so that's really important to put out there.

And also this idea of people not quote, not dying of COVID.

Well COVID, when you have existing conditions.

And most people do have some sort of existing condition that they're living with COVID can really aggravate those conditions and get them to the point where you can't, your body can't live with that anymore.

And that's what has been happening with a lot of people who've gotten COVID and have died of say pneumonia or something else.

They were dealing with health issues before.

COVID just made those things so much worse and the body couldn't fend off what was happening.

- [Mike] Let's talk about the anti-vax pills that are being considered in the legislature.

Bill seeking a balance between COVID-19 mandates and exemptions received hearings.

Remember that was going to be the one that was going to be rushed through, I think, and then it kind of got slowed down at house commerce and labor committee this week.

Let's just talk about what's being discussed and where we think that's heading.

- [Karen] My statehouse news bureau colleague, Andy Chow has pointed out that those hearings were informal hearing.

So now it's house leadership that has to decide whether that bill moves forward because the bill was in what makes sense.

The house health committee, right?

The, how the house health committee voted it out.

It was then supposed to go to the house floor.

And that was when Republicans really split over whether they were going to support this, because it was so much opposition from outside groups and influential groups, like the Ohio chamber of commerce, the Ohio hospital association, there was this coalition that was developed.

The vaccine coalition of a hundred groups.

And again, very influential groups saying they really oppose this idea that was in this bill.

And that idea, you know, you talk about it being a balance.

Well, there are a lot of groups that don't see what that bill is doing as being a balance.

What they see this bill is doing is creating vaccine mandate exemptions for basically anybody who wants to not have to take the COVID vaccine.

And these exemptions would be reasons of conscience.

And there was, there's no proof required that the, that you are a follower of a religion that opposes the COVID vaccine, which to my knowledge, there are no major religions that have said their adherence should not get the vaccine.

The whole point of that bill really was to create this idea of vaccine exemptions in case.

And very likely the COVID vaccine would be required say by businesses with more than a hundred employees, which is what the federal government is talking about right now.

But that broad exemption creation was really a concern for public health experts.

And for businesses saying this is not good public policy.

So that Bill is kind of on hold right now.

And the question is whether Republican leadership thinks they have the votes among their own caucus, because Democrats aren't going to support this.

Do they have enough votes among their own caucus to pass that.

- [Mike] School boards by the way, we've had some stories on the air about this.

And it's just been, in some ways horrifying to see the way some school board members are being attacked personally and threatened, because they are putting in ideas or mandates or policies, where some students might have to wear masks, those types of things, and then getting a blow back from that.

Shaker Heights city school district this week though, and amidst all that nationwide.

So that it's considering a COVID-19 vaccine mandate for all staff and volunteers.

Glenn that's something interesting to watch with them and something we might look for other school districts to do.

Yeah, absolutely.

They had their first reading on that last night.

And of course there were comments, you know, from both sides on the issue, it seems like everything was fairly under control there though.

So that that's a good thing.

If they do approve that policy in their next meeting, that would be October 12th, this upcoming Tuesday proof of vaccination deadline for the first shot would be less than a month from now that that would be November 5th.

The second dose would be required by November 26.

So that's kind of the timeline for Shaker Heights.

They're also saying it has to be the Pfizer vaccine because that's the one that has the full approval now, if you will.

So, and we saw Cincinnati, I believe was the first to the first district in the state to require vaccines.

Jenny Hamill from idea stream public media has done a lot of reporting on this, their Superintendent, David Glassner saying Shaker Heights Superintendent, We were prioritizing students and staff health and safety, and he also thinks they have a larger responsibility responsibility rather to the larger community to help stop the spread of COVID.

Now, as far as cases there, they've had nine staff coronavirus cases at the start of the, since the start of the year and 60 student cases in Shaker Heights, a lot of districts dealing with this and you know, the masking and the quarantining, and everybody's got different rules.

- [Mike] I'm confused by what you said though about it has to be Pfizer.

I'm vaccinated with Moderna.

So I would have to go get Pfizer vaccines?

- [Glenn] So I believe, I believe that if you already have it, that, that you're okay.

- [Mike] Gotcha (orchestral music) For the first time in decades, residents were allowed to address the full Cleveland city council during its meeting Monday.

Three minutes each for 10 speakers, and they took up every minute.

That first session, though, it seemed to go well, there were, people had a lot to say.

There was a lot of comment about, about the pandemic money and how that ought to be spent.

That's something that I know that there are folks that are saying, you know, the city council had to set aside some money and just let us decide.

But there was a, you know, a variety of things.

What does that do?

It's at the beginning of a council meeting.

So it's not like this is going to make us vote in a certain way on an issue that is right before us.

But the idea is to just be able to get it in front of your council member and all of them at the same time.

- [Glenn] Absolutely, and create more of that relationship.

It's another avenue to contact your council.

You can, you can address the entire council.

And I think that's attractive to a lot of people.

And if you want to talk to a particular Councilman in your ward, you can do so after the meeting, they get to know your name, they get to know your face.

We had the led advocates there as well, you know, to, to, to mitigate the led situation.

So you're going to be hearing a lot, a lot of that as well, just another avenue.

And like I said, a chance to get out in front of a full council and develop more of that relationship between council and their constituents.

- [Mike] And Kabir, I would think as a person who's covered a million council meetings as have I, as, as Karen.

These public comments, they can be valuable.

- [Kabir] They can be very valuable.

They let the council members know that I guess put them on notice is maybe a little bit strong, but let them know what the community is thinking.

And it's probably a lot of things that in the past council, people didn't want to hear about it.

They didn't want to have to think about.

I, they did allow comments at committee I believe, for this, - [Mike] Discretion - [Kabir] Discretion.

Yeah.

So you might not even get to speak.

So that's where the real work is done.

So the comments that I've seen on social media.

Number one, people were saying, I wished they had also somehow formalize this for committee meetings, but number two, they were talking about this.

Like had they had Facebook when the Berlin wall came down.

That was the level of relation I saw people saying we can finally speak at council.

- [Mike] Monday, on the sound of ideas radio show on 90.3 WCPN.

We'll discuss some of the big investments happening in the Clark Fulton neighborhood.

I'm Mike MacIntyre.

Thanks so much for watching and stay safe.

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