A Cuyahoga County jury has convicted East Cleveland Mayor Brandon King on ten corruption charges.

The Cleveland Clinic has scrapped its plan to require co-pays or visits are canceled.

And Cleveland Heights residents have launched a campaign to recall Mayor Kalil sarin.

Ideas is next.

Hello and welcome to IDEAS.

I'm Mike McIntyre.

Thank you for joining us.

East Cleveland Mayor Brandon King was found guilty yesterday of ten corruption charges, including theft in office and unlawful interest in a public contract.

The jury found he steered contracts, public money to companies owned by him and his relatives.

The Cleveland Clinic reversed course on its plan to force co-pays before patients can see a doctor.

Appointments won't be canceled if upfront payment is not made.

Instead, the clinic will arrange for what it calls no interest financing plans.

The Ohio attorney general has sued former board members of the shuttered Notre Dame College in South Euclid, accusing them of misspending endowment funds on the college's debt.

And residents are circulating a petition seeking a recall of Cleveland Heights Mayor Kahlil Seren.

Joining me for today's discussion of the week's news idea streams, associate producer of newscasts Josh Boose and News five reporter Michelle Jarboe in Columbus, and our statehouse news bureau, Sarah Donaldson.

Let's get ready to roundtable A jury convicted, suspended East Cleveland Mayor Brandon King yesterday on ten of 12 corruption related charges, including theft in office and having an unlawful interest in a public contract.

Josh, the prosecutors acknowledge that the amount of money in this case wasn't very substantial, dealing with something like $75,000.

But it wasn't about just the money.

Yeah, $75,000.

You're right, Mike.

And it wasn't about money.

James May, the Cuyahoga County assistant prosecutor, says, look, this money was not huge here, but quote, he says, This case is about disarray, guard disdain for the rule of law, separation of powers and the way things are supposed to work.

So it was more of a overall view of corruption, taking the public's trust from the actions that that he took.

What about Smith?

Talk a little bit about what the charges were against him and and how that was adjudicated.

Okay.

So Ernest Smith is a former East Cleveland councilmember.

He's charges related were related to using a city owned vehicle and theft in office.

But he's been adamant about this from the very beginning.

Smith has said, look, while he was using the city, while he was using that car, it was for city use charges.

He was looking out for youth.

He was helping elders in the community, doing community programs, doing community work.

But he, too was found guilty on most of the most of the counts.

As far as King is concerned, he was found guilty on ten of the 12 counts against him, including theft in office, three felony charges.

And those all stem from steering public money to companies that he owned or was tied to his family.

Yeah, there was some rent payment.

The council said no, and he apparently vetoed what they said, wrote in what the payment should be.

And when they vetoed that or overrode that, he still ended up making the payment, according to the testimony in court.

And that goes back to what James Mae was saying is, look, this is the disdain for the public trust here.

Even if you have the council pushing back a little bit.

He went on.

KING did.

So it's going to be interesting to see what happens in there in their sentencing.

What I thought was most interesting, though, Mike, was King turned down a plea deal before the trial began, and he was offered a plea deal.

And most of those charges would have been dropped.

And if he was resigned, if he resigned as mayor and if he pledged not to run again in the next seven years.

But, look, he was suspended as mayor.

This was not a voluntary thing.

As this trial went on.

He was not voluntarily stepping aside, but he turned that down.

And he says this judgment, he turned it down.

And even with this judgment now, though, he cannot retain his seat as mayor.

He cannot run for office for the next seven years and to same deal.

Yeah.

And his lawyer does say there will be an appeal.

You hear that every time there's a conviction here?

Sure.

There is an interim mayor that has been appointed, Sandra morgan.

We haven't heard from her about reacting to this.

Yeah, have not heard from her.

We do know that King will be sentenced.

Smith will be sentenced on June 9th.

Those felony counts each face up to 18 months in prison.

That's four and a half years for King if he were to get the maximum.

After intense public backlash, the Cleveland Clinic reversed course this week on a plan to require co-pays up front from patients canceling non-emergency appointments.

Otherwise, the doctor will now see you even if you don't make the co-pay and the hospital will arrange instead a no interest payment plan.

It's a relief to critics who say the pay first policy would disproportionately impact lower income patients and cause people to put off medical care.

There were proponents of this, though, that said, listen, you owe it to the clinic, just needs to collect co-pays.

This was a way to do it.

But the issue in Cleveland City Council and a number of advocates weighed in was if you require it at this moment or you don't get to see the doctor, you're going to prevent people from seeing doctors.

Right.

And that was what the Cleveland Clinic says.

It was all about perception, really.

Spokesperson says, oh, we now realize it may have been perceived that we are not going to see patients that couldn't pay.

Insinuating that was not the case all along.

So now they're going to have that co-pay system, if you will, or excuse me, the zero interest payment plan.

Help me help me understand that.

So if I if I go in, they say you owe a co-pay.

Yeah.

And I see I don't have it right now, which is what happens today if I don't if I don't want to pay it right now.

Yeah.

Then I pay it without interest at some point at a future date.

Yeah, but you know what is what.

It's different here.

It's the same thing.

So it's more of a contractual thing I think is how I perceive it to be.

Where you sign up, you have to say, okay, I'm going to pay $10 this month, I'm to pay $10 next month, etc., etc., as opposed to and here's the thing, sometimes even for me, when I go to the doctor, they will ask, they'll say, okay, do you want them to take care of your payment now?

Or if I sign up online, they will ask that.

That has not always been the case and I've been talking to other people too.

It's very inconsistent.

So obviously now they're going to be more consistent with that and if you cannot pay immediately, then it will be signed up for this plan.

Was interesting because we had a couple of listeners let us know that they have insurance plans that don't require co-pays.

And so how would they go?

And they say, well, where's your co-pay?

And it's like, I don't know, a co-pay.

And would there be some confusion over that about whether they'd get their care?

I mentioned, Michelle, the Cleveland City Council members were not particularly happy.

They called clinic administrators on the carpet about this.

Yes, that's right.

There was a Cleveland City Council caucus meeting last week where this was a hot topic and some members of city council described this as being a slap in the face to residents.

Meanwhile, executives from the clinic said, look, you know, we operate on slim margins.

We need to collect this money that we're owed in order to stay afloat and make investments in not only health care but community programs.

So there was a lot of back and forth about it.

And then ultimately yesterday, a kind of celebratory reaction from members of council, including Council President Blaine Griffin, who said, quote, he had honest conversations with the executive team at the clinic about how the policy could hurt people in the community.

So now now the clinic has said, you know, this was not a reaction to all the pushback, but clearly council is interpreting that.

It was.

Yeah.

And Griffin went on to say he's grateful they took the time to listen.

They made the changes.

They're basically saying, you know, good job by by listening to what our complaints were and and acting upon that.

I think one of the biggest issues with council members and with others that were criticizing this is where the clinic is located, is very near some of the poorest neighborhoods in the state and certainly the poor in some of the poorest neighborhoods in Cleveland.

And to be in such a position where you might be perceived as not offering care and the clinic is very sensitive about this because it's it's been said in rating systems that they don't offer a lot of charity care.

They say that those systems don't count everything and that they do do a lot of that kind of care.

But the perception issue here about them not being welcoming of people, if they can't pay 30 bucks was a big issue for council members.

Oh, it definitely was.

And there have been those tensions for a long time over the clinic's engagement with the community around it.

And, you know, specifically the Fairfax neighborhood in particular.

And just a quick note to, if I can, about the scope of this issue.

You know, the Cleveland Clinic says in 2020, for more than half of the patients did not pay their copayments.

So that's about $70 million.

Big picture, that's what, one or 2% of their overall budget for the Cleveland Clinic.

But $70 million, that's a lot.

So collecting that money was very important for them to to offer these services.

It's been really interesting to talk to members of the public about this because you do hear very solidly both sides of this, which is on one end.

You don't want people who aren't of means to be dissuaded from getting necessary health care.

On the other, there are folks that says that say, I can't get my car washed without paying in advance.

I can't.

This is part of the contract.

You know, it cost you this much money.

You have insurance.

It covers the rest.

By the way, this does not apply to people that were on Medicare, Medicaid, I mean, in certain emergency services and those types of things.

But basically, the argument and you're hearing people say both sides was, listen, you owe it, you should pay it.

And I think the clinic was counting on that being the overriding philosophy.

And I don't think that was what the public perception ended up being.

Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost filed a lawsuit in Cuyahoga County Common Pleas court this week, accusing the former board of Notre Dame College in South Euclid of misusing endowment funds to pay off the college's debts.

Notre Dame closed its doors in May of last year and the campus was put up for sale.

The attorney general and the Bank of America, which filed a separate suit, want a court appointed receiver to be put in charge of the finances.

Michel.

The former college still faces a pile of debt right now.

They still are sitting on endowment money.

And this has Yost concerned.

Why?

Well, the according to the lawsuit that he filed, he believes that the college has or officials there have used restricted funds from the endowment for purposes that donors didn't allow those funds to be used.

So he's saying, you know, there's been a misappropriation of funds here and this money needs to be protected.

Right.

You can't pay off a bank note with money that's earmarked for something else.

But that's apparently what they did.

That that is the allegation.

And then separately, there is this concern about all the money that they owe to Bank of America and what happens with the college's assets.

So, you know, that 50 acre campus right there is still sitting on the market.

It apparently a buyer has not emerged for it yet.

I know a number of people have taken a run at run at it, but, you know, haven't seen a deal come together.

The community is obviously very concerned about it.

And this receiver, this third party expert, if they're appointed, would be responsible for maintaining the value of the college's assets, real estate and otherwise during these court processes and ultimately orchestrating a sale of the real estate to pay off debt.

Josh, you put in a bid for that campus, didn't you?

I did, yeah.

I have some great ideas.

Josh would coming up.

Joshua How about a like a parkour campus, something like that.

Jump off the buildings.

What, if anything, have we heard from the former leadership of Notre Dame College in response to all this?

So nothing right now.

All attempts to hear from them were unsuccessful.

Here's the thing, though.

All that we made, I should say all the trustees are named as defendants, though.

And this lawsuit outlines how the president, John Smeaton, had told the board back in 2023 that the college did use $3 million from the endowment fund to pay for outside bills, if you will, which was outside of donor restrictions.

You know, when you donate to colleges, you say, I want this to be used for this, etc., etc.. He allegedly told the board of trustees, this is what this is what we did.

And it's kind of fessed up to it or at least explained how they paid their bills in that sense.

Ohio Supreme Court Justice Pat Fisher, who has two years left on his term, announced he'll run next year against fellow Justice Jennifer Brunner, the only Democrat on the court.

It's a move to extend his tenure because when his own term ends in 2028, he'd be too old to run again.

he'd be 70 and barred from running again because of his age.

But that rule is only about running.

It doesn't say a judge can't serve out a term, and so he could serve his six year term well beyond his seventies.

Also, it seems, Sarah, a chance for him to knock off the only statewide elected Democrat in state government.

Absolutely.

I mean, Republicans really solidified their power on the court in 2024.

You had two Republican challengers knock out two Democratic incumbents on the court.

And this is all after the Ohio legislature moved several years ago to add the R and the D next to the names of the folks who are running for the Supreme Court.

But Fisher can extend his time on the court a little bit more if he runs this year and next year and beats out the lone Democratic justice on the court.

So it's definitely an interesting move, but not unsurprising.

You know, I had heard this, as had several other reporters, that this had been floated because there were already, I want to say, four Republicans who had declared to run in the primary.

It'll be interesting to see if Fisher kind of holds that primary field on his own.

Yeah, but it also does point a pretty bright light for me to focus on how these races have become So partizan, it used to be with the Supreme Court, as you said, it didn't have the designation on the ballot of whether they were Republican or Democrat.

You certainly knew that with if you followed the campaigning, but it was basically about how a judge might rule what their their legal background might be.

This really seems so much like any other kind of political race.

Yeah.

I mean, you saw that in 2024 as well.

You know, I went to an event at the Ohio Chamber of Commerce when they were announcing their endorsements and the Supreme Court race.

And I know the Chamber of Commerce said, you know, we're looking at judges who are going to go by the book.

They're not activist judges, but they did endorse three Republicans.

They endorsed the Republican slate of candidates.

So it has become very partizan.

A number of lower court Republican judges have been eyeing a run against Brunner.

Would Fischer's campaign basically clear the field?

I think that there's a chance that it does.

It's going to depend as well on what the Ohio Republican Party chooses to do, because in this race, you know, he's running for a different seat.

He's not technically an incumbent, even though he is an incumbent justice.

So it's a little bit of an interesting situation.

And you, of course, saw the same thing with Justice.

Jody Powers to I guess it's last year now I'm losing track of all time in states.

But Dieter's beat out Melody Stewart, a Democratic justice, and he also kind of extended his term.

He ran for a different seat instead of filling out his current term.

But the Republican Party could choose to endorse Fisher at a future meeting.

Like I said, I was at a Republican Party meeting when they endorsed Vivek Ramaswamy in the governor's race, and all four of the primary candidates for this race were there, kind of giving their pitch about what they were running on.

But, you know, when the when someone who's already sitting on the court comes out and says, I'm running, I have to imagine that, you know, spooks off some potential challengers.

Cleveland Heights residents have begun circulating a petition to recall the city's first elected mayor, Kahlil Seren.

City council is expected to consider a resolution of no confidence Monday, and Ceron, meanwhile, has signaled his intention to run for reelection.

He's been under pressure to resign after his wife was accused of using anti-Semitic language in texts and in conversation.

Concerns also been raised about her influence in city government, her behavior at city hall as well.

Sharon has defended his wife, defiantly, told council members they don't have authority over him.

Michel, the council is bringing forth this resolution doesn't really have any teeth.

No, no, it can express sentiment, but not it based on the reporting that my colleagues have done.

It won't really do anything.

And this idea of a circulating petition for recall is also interesting.

Our Gabriel Kramer did a story about a dozen residents in Cleveland Heights that are just we're just tired of this turmoil.

And they said that the anti-Semitism allegations were the thing that really put it over the top.

Well, it seems like there's a new story about what's going on in Cleveland Heights almost every day.

And I imagine for people who live there, that has got to be just a lot to deal with.

One of those is something that many have reported on, including News five and Fox eight, where the mayor had said the city council.

Yeah, my my city card doesn't get me into the law department and it doesn't work there.

That's not how it is.

But he has another car and he says it does.

So when they shot some video the next day of him going right into the department.

Like, what are you talking about?

Well, it's a different car.

And I was I was talking about this card, not that card, which really sounds kind of squirrely.

So this is obviously an offshoot of the whole maelstrom going on over there.

And now we've got people debating over the difference between a key card and a FOB.

Right.

And one's for whatever.

And it goes on and on to I mean, the other offshoot is that initially at that meeting, when the mayor comes in, he's sitting with city council.

City council says people have been wondering where you've been since these allegations have come out.

He goes, Well, I've been right here.

And then for the day and a half after that, he sat in rooms with cameras, and the cameras were online.

The live streaming online of him sitting at a desk writing.

So there you go.

Hmm.

Well, we'll see how this continues to play out.

As we said, Monday's council meeting should be interesting.

And the mayor has signaled that.

He intends to run for office again.

Two bills, one in the Ohio House and another in the Senate seek to prevent businesses and certain non-citizens hailing from so-called adversarial countries, from buying property near military bases, railroads, water treatment plants and other critical infrastructure.

Who exactly are the lawmakers seeking to prevent folks from buying land in these places in Ohio?

Sarah.

Yeah.

So these bills would prevent both businesses and then non-citizens like lawful permanent residents who hold green cards, who come from countries defined as adversarial.

Right now, the countries that Ohio defines as adversarial based on federal guidelines are China, Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Russia and Venezuela.

So they're considered foreign adversaries, and that's who this bill applies to, not Canada.

No, no.

But, you know, everything's fluid.

So they are looking to protect these areas that are 25 mile radius from these places.

Essentially what they think that if someone buys property there, they could have, you know, terrorist ideas or something of that nature.

I think the concern is just also, you know, growing influence particularly.

I mean, this bill definitely seems especially targeted toward Chinese influence.

But when you talk about that 25 mile radius, I think it's really important to kind of tie for listeners.

There is this list of protected properties in the bill that these quote unquote, foreign adversaries couldn't buy.

So it's anything within a 25 mile radius of military facilities like bases or critical infrastructure.

Sure.

That's anything from a water treatment facility, a railroad, an electric generation facility.

So if you do the math, it's pretty much anywhere in here.

I mean, I can't say that with utmost certainty, but it's kind of hard to imagine someone doesn't live within 25 miles of like a railroad.

And this isn't brand new.

In 2023, there was similar legislation Governor Mike DeWine vetoed involving agricultural land.

Yeah.

So he actually it's it's a little confusing.

This deals with real property.

So that's the land plus any buildings on it.

And you get certain property rights with the term real property.

DeWine vetoed basically the same measures that we see in these bills banning foreign adversaries from buying real property.

But he signed off on a ban banning foreign adversaries from buying agricultural farmland.

So that is that part is in law.

It was passed as part of the last budget and it's in law.

Cyclists rejoice.

The city of Cleveland will install its first protected bike lanes downtown next month and tweak the traffic pattern on two streets in the Gateway District.

Michel.

This was interesting.

Steve Litt, who does some writing for us, did a story on this.

And it in terms of our web, traffic was incredibly high.

People were very interested in I was like, what?

Two little roads in Cleveland are going to be one way.

They were incredibly interested in this.

What's their reasoning for the city for reworking them?

Yeah.

So the idea here is to make the streets safer for people who are walking, people who are on bicycles, and also just to simplify traffic flow, they're at the edge of the Gateway district.

These two streets come together kind of at a sharp angle, and this will enable better landscaping patio areas along the street and just a better overall flow of people and cars.

It's an interesting project and I've talked to some property owners who are really excited about it, and it's really the first delivery on the promise from the Bibb administration to provide dozens and dozens of protected bike lane miles.

In this case, there'll be protected bike lanes.

What exactly are those?

Well, they can look a little bit different.

So on hereon there's going to be a bike lane between the parking lane and the curb.

On Prospect, there will be bike lanes that are protected by these were described as batons, I think kind of like bollards that are fastened to the pavement.

Protected bike lanes can look a lot of different ways.

The city also has been working for a long time on for a midway project on Superior that would have protected bike lanes, a track down the middle of the road.

So there are a lot of different ways to design these things and protect it is really key.

Josh I don't know if you ride a bike.

I do every once in a while, but I'm one of those guys that would love a protected bike.

Lane We have Drew Macias, our our urban bicyclist who can whip through traffic and and doesn't mind if it's heavy next to him.

I get real anxious by that.

But the idea of having a protected bike lane would really create another transportation avenue for people like me.

And more than anything, this is what people have been asking for.

This is what the mayor has campaigned on.

And I think this is the start of something that we're going to see continue, particularly when we're talking about the emerging revitalization of the lakefront.

The mayor has said he wants to see expanded access not only through, you know, by vehicles, but through people walking and through bike lanes coming into the city.

And people are we have a huge bike community here.

We hear from them all the time.

And yeah, that's that's something that I think people are going to be continuing to ask about with more wanting more of this.

There's a new glass walkway and the Nelson Kennedy ledges in Portage County.

The see through bridge crosses the gorge off state Route 282 and gives walkers and hikers a clear eyed view into the 50 foot deep ravine.

100%.

My wife would never get on this bridge.

I can't wait to get on it and take a look below that.

But I don't know.

Would you walk on a glass bridge, Michelle?

Well, I did it Saturday with my family, and then I went back on Monday because I had to work on Memorial Day.

I went back on Monday and did a story about it.

There were so many people there.

Also, every kind of dog you could ever possibly want to see.

So if if you guys didn't want to get on the bridge, if your wife didn't want to get on the bridge, she could just stand off to the side and watch a dog show.

Oh, pretty neat.

She's like that.

Yeah.

And the story I read, Sue said the same thing.

There were just as many dogs there as there were people.

And people were parking on the grass because that's a great attraction.

It really is.

Yeah.

Dogs allowed on the bridge, like does it?

Oh yes.

Yeah.

It doesn't worry the dogs I so I interviewed a couple of people with a couple of dogs and they said some of the dogs seem totally unaffected by it.

Other dogs were a little bit nervous.

I also saw multiple people end up picking their dogs up and carrying them the bridge.

And this isn't a big, long bridge, but it's fairly short.

But it's a striking feature and it's clearly bringing a lot of people out for the first time to a that they otherwise might not have visited.

Well, I've been there and Nelson Ledges is awesome.

Great place to hike.

And now you've got one more reason to be there.

Absolutely.

All right.

Monday on the Sound of Ideas on 89 seven KSU, we'll talk to representatives of the United Way of Greater Cleveland about research into people in northeast Ohio who earn more than the federal poverty level, but not enough to afford the basics where they live.

Are there policy solutions to bridge the gap?

I'm Mike McIntyre.

Thank you so much for watching.

And stay safe.