Cuyahoga County Council has voted to extend a sales tax 40 more years to pay for a new jail.

The Ohio Legislature passed a bill that prohibits gender affirming health care for transgender youth and a landmark Cleveland area restaurant closes.

But there's hope the conditions will one day return.

Ideas is next.

Hello and welcome to Ideas.

I'm Mike McIntyre.

Thanks for joining us.

In a surprise vote with little notice, Cuyahoga County Council approved a 40 year extension of a quarter percent sales tax to pay for the new jail.

The vote was 6 to 5.

There will be no ballot measure.

A bill that combines two anti LGBTQ plus measures is on its way to Governor Mike DeWine for his signature.

It prevents transgender children from receiving any gender affirming health care and prohibits transgender females from playing on girls and women's sports teams.

LGBTQ plus advocates want the governor to veto the bill.

A long planned offshore wind turbine project on Lake Erie has been paused, with no plans for a restart.

The project's board of directors cited rising costs and a landmark Cleveland area restaurant.

Corky and Lenny's Deli in Woodmere announced it'll be closing its doors, but offered hope of a return in a social media post.

Joining me to talk about all of these and other top stories from this week from Ideastream, public media education reporter Connor Morris from the Buckeye Flame editor Ken Schneck and Statehouse News Bureau chief Karen Kasler.

Let's get ready to roundtable.

Cuyahoga County Council extended the quarter percent sales tax in a special meeting urged by executive Chris Ronayne.

Opponents called it sneaky.

Money generated from the tax extension could be used to pay for the new jail and a new courthouse.

CONNOR This vote by council, though, did seem to take people by surprise, including those opposed to the extension.

Yeah, I mean, there were there were five council members who were opposed.

I mean, just a very slim majority that was passed by.

I mean, it was an off time for County Council two in the morning as well.

So yeah, it did take people by surprise for sure.

And again, to it's hard to kind of understate like how unpopular the tax for the quote unquote medical mark was.

I mean, people call it a boondoggle.

The building sits empty for stretches of time.

So already it was an unpopular thing to begin with.

And you could hear that from from council members, too, as well.

So you hear this debate, can that we have a tax that's been put on for a particular project.

So we already are used to paying the tax that's going to it's supposed to sunset in 2027.

Money would then be flowing to the Polk County Public Library to other places to extend that tax, according to those who are proponents of it, is the least painful thing to do because we're already paying for it and somehow this jail problem has to be paid for.

That's one end of the argument.

The other end of it is let us decide.

Right.

You said it right at the start.

It's the word special meeting.

Why was this a special meeting is what folks are questioning, both on the council and also the public and advocates who are who want a better jail system but are not for this way of actually achieving it.

So the idea that this happened at a at a special meeting and the public had no input in it is is why some folks are saying this this was not the way to do it.

The public should have had some sort of say in in extending this.

There was a requirement for public hearings.

And I understand that those did happen, though.

The last one was in August.

So the idea of a vote now was a surprise.

Exactly right.

That there was this time frame between those two things when there wasn't this sense of urgency.

But Chris Ronayne said there is a sense of urgency that if this doesn't get done now, that interest rates are going to go up, that costs are going to go up, and the jail problem is not going away as it hasn't gone away for a very, very long time.

And so now was the time to take action.

Folks are definitely taking exception with county executive Chris Ronayne stands, particularly given that he campaigned very much the opposite of what he has now said this week.

Also, those who are proponents of this would say, yes, you would say it should go to a popular vote, but a tax almost would never pass a popular vote.

And a lot of other very important measures would never have come into being had there been a popular vote in order to decide them.

I think any time you're against something, you're going to say it should have gone to the popular vote.

And then conversely, whether or not a tax would have gone through.

But some opponents have said no.

I mean, there are levies that go through.

And so any number of times the public has voted for extra financial increases to their tax base, but that at the end of the day, the public should have had some say here.

Connor, I know that our colleague Abby Marshall put this question to Chris Ronayne interested in the answer, too.

But when he was running for county executive, he talked about this jail problem, which everyone agreed was a problem that needed to be dealt with.

And he said if it was going to be an extension of the sales tax to take care of it, it should be something we all decide together that there should be a vote.

And then he's the one that's really the proponent of not going to a public vote and saying, we've got to get this thing done.

It seemed like a flip flop.

He has sort of a reason for it.

Yeah, he had said that he told Abby that, you know, he was opposed to the transport road jail site, one of the the former jail sites that was being considered.

And that was one of the main reasons why he wanted it to go to a popular vote, because he thought that the site was a bad idea.

And so now he's saying, look, we found a site that we think is is the one.

And again, you know, as everyone kind of knows, I mean, these costs are only going to be increasing in terms of construction costs.

Let's lock it in now and, you know, move forward.

But then you hear other members on county council like Sonny Simon, she's saying there's no guardrails on this.

It's a 40 year mortgage on our residents with a blank check, essentially going to the general fund is what she said.

Yeah, it's not tied specifically.

We all talk about how this is funding for the jail and possibly for the courthouse and upkeep, because I think Parnell Jones, the council president, said there'll be enough money in here for maintenance on that as well.

But it isn't in the legislation that this money goes directly to, that it goes into the general fund, which is essentially can for anything the county wants to spend it on.

Exactly.

And so with no guarantees, there is this really the way for the council to approach it?

And obviously, based on what was that 6 to 5 vote, it was pretty darn close.

We got a note here from Darrel who's listening, says, Does the vote mean that the county courts will also move?

If so, what impact will this have on downtown office occupancy?

The courts have their own problem and it is an outdated facility.

I know that the county prosecutor, along with the chief administrative judge, have been talking about needing a new facility.

The question is whether it would go and join in this big Garfield Heights facility complex or whether it would go somewhere else.

We don't have an answer to that yet.

We don't have answers to that yet.

We don't know where this would go.

And I think Ronan's quote at the end of the day was good people are spending a night tonight in that jail, not in the best of conditions.

They still deserve the dignity of a humane facility.

The Ohio Legislature passed House Bill 68, which combined the Save Adolescence from Experimentation Act and the Save Women's Sports Act.

Most of the public testimony was in opposition.

The combined bill now heads to Governor DeWine for his approval.

LGBTQ plus advocates want the governor to veto it.

It would ban gender affirming health care for transgender youth.

It would forbid transgender girls from playing on girls and women's sports teams from kindergarten through college can.

So these two bills became one.

These two bills became one.

LGBTQ advocates call this an anti-trans omnibus bill because there is so much happening here.

And certainly.

Nikki Antonio.

Senator Nikki Antonio, the only out LGBTQ plus legislator currently in the Ohio legislature, said how these two bills are all together in one defeats the purpose of what the legislature has said are supposed to be one topic bills that say yes.

You have on the one hand the Safe Adolescence from Experimentation Act proposed by Pastor Representative Gary Click out of Victory Ohio and that one would ban gender affirming care.

It would also charge health care providers with aiding and abetting if they recommend gender affirming care in a state where it is legal.

So it really puts out of business, according to the Ohio Children's Hospital and Cincinnati Children's Hospital, it would put out of business these gender affirming care clinics, particularly in that Cincinnati area.

So you have that on the one hand.

On the other hand, you also have the Safe Women's Sports Act, which was thrown into this bill at the last minute in the summer, I think it was on right at the start of June.

And that one would establish single sex sports teams in kindergarten.

And it is a key piece through college.

Many folks have been writing in and saying, does this apply to only public schools?

Because many of the many of the legislation that we talk about here applies to the public universities.

No, this would apply to all of Ohio's colleges and universities, the private ones as well.

And it would specifically ban trans women from playing on female sports teams.

And the reasoning for that is it's an unfair competitive advantage.

You're hearing from the proponents that women who are trans women are somehow going to be have more masculine physical traits or whatever and to be able to to win in competition.

The OHSU, a high school Sports Ohio High School Athletic Association, already has a policy on this.

There's testing, there's hormone levels, there's other things that are used.

And as I understand it, not a whole lot of these situations anyway.

Six I put up my hands there for six there.

Currently six approved trans female athletes are trans athletes in Ohio and many of them are benchwarmers.

It's individuals who are looking for the camaraderie of team sports.

The proponents of the same Safe Women's Sports Act.

Their argument is basically that there are men who are waking up one day who are not good at their sports and are deciding I'm now going to play for a women's sport and they will win a trophy by the end of the day.

That's the argument.

That is literally not happening.

And the ohc a, they have a whole policy that has a year deferral and there's testing and there's doctors notes.

It is not that anyone is waking up one day and playing for a team of a different gender.

There's a lot that has to take place as we are seeing that only six athletes have been approved through this process.

Let's talk about the gender affirming health care part of this.

Proponents fear that decisions for minors could be made now that are irreversible.

Those who want gender affirming care say it saves lives.

And they note that gender reassignment surgery for minors is really a straw man, that it really isn't happening.

So when you hear gender affirming care, people might say and there are polls, by the way, that say people are in favor of what the legislature did here.

When you hear gender affirming care, you think, well, a young child who may, you know, be questioning their sexuality, their sexual orientation or their gender would then have some irreversible surgery put upon them.

That's the concern.

And that's why they're trying to say, we don't want this to happen.

Let's wait until they're adults and let this happen.

What is gender affirming care beyond aid, this thing that Senator Nikki Antonio says doesn't ever happen in Ohio?

Absolutely.

And that's a really important argument.

You know who else is against gender reassignment surgery for minors?

The Cincinnati Children's Hospital, they testified in committee saying, no, we're not for this either.

Also, it's not happening that gender reassignment surgery is not happening for minors in Ohio.

So if the bill was only about that, it would have probably had widespread support.

But it's so much more than that.

As you said, this this ban on gender affirming health care includes prescribing of puberty, blockers and hormones, which we know doctors have testified over and over and over again that these are reversible, that that the effects of hormones in puberty blockers are reversible, as evidenced by the fact that they are prescribed to any number of youth, not just trans youth.

So there's that there's mental health care.

There are parts of this bill that are also if a parent does not affirm the gender of their child, that that cannot be used against them in custody cases.

So that's in there, too.

There are so many different parts of this bill.

But I just want to repeat one more time.

Another part of this bill that's that's really tricky is that aiding and abetting piece, that part where health care providers can lose their license, potentially if they recommend gender affirming care outside of the state of Ohio.

And we saw on almost every major medical organization and doctors, etc., oppose this legislation.

Absolutely.

Including people, people who have medical licenses, who are on these committees.

Again, and will probably talk about this in a couple of seconds there.

One of the other bills that Republicans are pushing is the parents bill of Rights.

Well, here you have parents of trans children saying, where are our rights to determine the health care of our children?

Why is the government stepping in and saying, you as a parent cannot determine the most appropriate health care for your child?

And some of those parents, I have to say, some of the most impassioned that we watch testify are, by their own admission, extraordinarily Republican parents who are saying, I'm for everything else that you all are for who are proposing this bill, but not for you stepping in and taking away my ability to determine the health care of my child.

How do you think this would be policed?

How could it be?

I think it's going to be based on complaints.

I think it's going to.

And that's what experts say that that it would be based on people reporting, hey, here's a health care provider who is providing gender affirming care.

But the one of the other tricky parts about all this is that these hospital associations have said this is going to put a lot of people out of business.

So this argument there's there's a couple of different arguments there.

One, that it's going to cost Ohio quite a bit of money because we're going to lose a lot of jobs and a lot of health care options.

And then also, as you cover all the time here at ideastream of these new businesses, including Intel, these new mammoth enterprises starting up here in Ohio, there are a lot of parents of trans children who are going to say, yeah, I can't move to that state to take that job because there will be no health care for my child.

It's not this state, only those couple of dozen.

There's a number of these red states that are passing bills like this.

What does that do to the mood of the LGBTQ community?

And is it to a point where, you know, everybody has to move to Vermont?

Vermont.

There is not one there has not been one parent that I have spoken with of a miner, a trans miner in Ohio.

And I speak to quite a lot of them for the Buckeye Flame.

There is not one of them like who does not have an escape plan, not just a vague suggestion of a maybe I'll go to Vermont, but here's a county in New York that we're going to move to.

So they have actual these are actual plans to leave because it would be extraordinarily damaging to their children to no longer be able to receive health care.

So it doesn't create a great atmosphere for the LGBTQ community in Ohio.

Akron Public Schools plans to right size the district to account for population loss.

The district already planned to close several buildings, including Firestone Park Elementary.

Now it wants to develop a redistricting plan that would change where some students go to school and a shorter more are inadequate facilities.

Really, the idea is that the district has struggled with declining enrollment for years now, and it's part and parcel with the city of Akron seeing, you know, population declines.

Of course.

But, you know, at the same time, there was significant community buy in with, you know, local and state support over the last decade to build, you know, a lot of new buildings as, you know, brand new, you know, community learning centers.

That has left a few buildings that aren't new.

They're going to require a lot of money to fix up.

And so the idea here is kind of consolidating students and staff to the higher quality buildings and making sure that these students are in the kind of higher quality options, basically.

So the whole idea is there's fewer students than there were before, and there's a problem with a lot of these facilities.

So the new superintendent is saying, okay, well, let's move them into better facilities.

Jettison the ones that aren't as good.

That seems like if you just look at it on paper, an easy equation.

Yeah, but then it comes to parents who have to send their students to a new school.

So the nostalgia of certain schools and districts, I know that the school is is telling parents we'll have open enrollment after this.

So you'll get a chance to choose which school you want to go to.

Yeah, the district does have open enrollment in general, and there will be a special open enrollment period in January, late January or early February for students that will be affected by this.

So they are kind of they're kind of blazing forward with this, for sure.

We heard parents at the that at the Firestone, there was a Firestone Park Elementary, meaning Firestone Park will be closed.

And, you know, there were folks that were pretty concerned.

They were saying to think carefully about what happens to the building after.

It's been a problem for a while here that parents have complained about.

Once they closed buildings, they've kind of kind of become attractive nuisances, graffiti.

Some some say that there's more crime that happens kind of starts to the neighborhood.

Vitality starts to take a hit.

When are there these abandoned buildings just kind of sit there, sort of saying, look, think carefully about what happens, but also to bussing the concern when their kids are being sent to different schools, if they're not within two miles or so then or if they are within two miles or so of the building, then they don't get bussing.

So they're like, Oh, I need to take my kids to school now.

I work.

So they're concerned about transportation as well too.

And some people say, Hey, Firestone Park is been around for a while.

It's a historic building.

They would argue.

Cleveland's icebreaker offshore wind turbine project has been halted.

Project goes back years was expected.

Create a bunch of jobs.

Ken now we've got a situation where the nonprofit LEED co that runs it is going to give back millions of dollars in federal grant.

Yeah, this goes back more than a decade actually goes back to 2009.

The project was expected to create 500 jobs and generate $253 million for the region's economy.

But they have paused it now.

They they cited higher interest rates, which I think has come up in almost every story we've talked about right now, driving up the cost of materials, push back from the Ohio Power Sitting board, and also lawsuits from fossil fuel companies who don't want clean energy investments as this.

There are a whole lot of opponents, too, including boaters who didn't want basically the eyesore that what they thought would be an eyesore.

Advocates of birds who said that these would be bad for birds.

And it has all been discussed and legislated and litigated and we've talked about it here.

But what we now hear is the word is a pause, but when you talk to the folks in charge, they say there's really no plan to start a back up.

I mean, if some magic money showed up and everything was fixed, we do it.

Yes.

A pause with no plan to restart.

One could also call stopping.

That's basically what that looks like right now.

Republicans in the Ohio House voted to override one of Governor DeWine's budget line item veto this week when DeWine signed the budget over the summer, he nixed an item that prohibited cities from enacting their own tobacco regulations Kiran.

It took the house a few weeks to get this together.

What happens now?

Well, it's only through the House, so the Senate has to come back and do an override, has to get that 3/5 majority for the override to completely happen and for the veto to be nonexistent.

And so this is so complicated because it's the legislature wanted to ban local communities from having the ability to ban sales of flavored vapes and tobacco.

And it was in many ways targeted toward Columbus because Columbus has a ban going into effect in January.

But the legislature tried this twice, and both times DeWine vetoed it, saying this When communities ban flavored tobacco, they're trying to protect kids.

And these are this is something that communities should be allowed to do.

So once again, you have the legislature kind of pushing back on home rule and saying, well, home rule will be okay with that, for instance, in a bill that would allow cities to ban marijuana sales.

But then when it comes to banning sales or sales of flavor tobacco, they say they don't want to do that.

So we have to wait for the Senate.

They're not expected to come back this year.

And so the ban in Columbus will most likely go into effect.

I talked to Columbus Mayor Andrew Guenther yesterday and he said the expectation is that their ban will go into effect.

And he said the idea is that we're not asking legislators to do these things for us.

They're just we just want them to get out of our way as city leaders so we can protect people the way that we think they want us to protect them.

All right.

Let me see if I can follow, as the House wants to ban DeWine's ban on the legislature's ban of communities, banning flavored tobacco by George.

I think you got it.

That's a lot of bans.

It's a lot of bans.

It is.

I watched that hearing and one of the quotes that just made my jaw drop.

And when something makes my jaw drop, I immediately text Karen, which I did in that moment was an I can't remember who it was Karen, but the one of the representatives saying that to ban flavored tobacco and flavored vapes would be to convey to people that Ohio is not open for business and Ohio is open for business.

So we cannot limit flavored tobacco.

And I just sat there and watched and said, Wow, that's a really strong stance.

Yeah.

I mean, the whole argument has been that if you got two stores on different sides of the street, one is in the city limits, one isn't.

Well, then the one store that's in the city limits can't sell flavored tobacco.

The other one can.

But the question has been, is this something that maybe we don't want to see happen?

And DeWine has been very strongly opposed to sales of flavored tobacco.

He wants a statewide ban and Speaker Jason Stephens said, yeah, we ought to look at this at a statewide level, but there's been no move to ban it at a statewide level.

And in fact, the idea has been to ban even local communities from being able to restrict these sales.

You mentioned Jason Stephens.

So I have to note it.

We had a story where he said term limits maybe should go away, which Ken and I were just thinking, well, there aren't any anyway, because don't they keep just jumping from Senate to House to Senate to House?

There are not term limits on the idea of moving back and forth.

Right.

You have eight, eight years after being elected to either the House or Senate.

And that's what happens.

You end up getting legislators who go back and forth on Scott Slager and Kirk share sharing down in the in the Akron area are two great examples.

They they almost literally trade seats and just go back and forth.

This is interesting, though, that the speaker is bringing up this idea because this is an idea that former Speaker Larry Householder was going to pursue if you know, the whole thing about House Bill six hadn't happened.

So I think it's interesting that he's talking about this now.

Let's talk about Corky.

And Lenny is a stunning announcement this week for fans of the landmark restaurant.

Corky and Lenny's owner, Kenny Kurland, announced that the deli would be closing after more than 65 years.

When I heard the news, my jaw dropped so much that I could have actually taken a bite of a corky and Lenny's corned beef sandwich at that moment.

I felt a little better this morning, Ken, when I saw the restaurant's Facebook post from last night.

They're selling off frozen soup and corned beef hash, along with T-shirts and beverages and other things.

Today, from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. and the end of the Post said this Whatever gift cards aren't used, keep them.

We do plan to reopen at some point.

Yeah, there was a little bit of hope there.

And when we're talking iconic and landmark place, we're talking Corky and Lenny's goes back to 1956.

And even as a kosher vegetarian, I enjoy it there immensely.

And what do I get?

Okay, so I do get matzo ball save, which probably is chicken stock, but I choose not to ask I and there knishes are unbelievable.

Their egg salad is just plain wonderful.

So if I'm helping drive up business that they can reopen.

I would happily do that.

I remember a few months ago I was sitting right before I did a talk at the Malts Museum.

I was sitting in the Maltz Jewish Museum parking lot eating a finish from Corky and Lenny's as my mom was on speaker phone, and it was the most Jewish experience I've ever had in my entire life.

I love it.

I love it.

I, by the way, I would love to have a corned beef or a pastrami, but then I can't get off the little stool they have there where you can.

I sit at the counter, so I always end up getting like the turkey.

Reuben They feel like that's a healthy choice.

Sure.

We'll go with that.

Mike Monday on The Sound of Ideas on 89 seven KSU, Jenny Hammel talks with the new executive director of the nonprofit Taking over the West Side Market.

I'm Mike McIntyre.

Thank you so much for watching.

And stay safe.