(compelling music) - [Mike] First Energy agrees to $230 million in fines for its role in the HB6 bribery scandal.

What could that mean for the case against former Ohio House speaker, Larry Householder, and others?

The nation's three biggest drug distributors and a drug maker reach a $26 billion settlement in a landmark case prompted by the opioid epidemic, and Ohio stands to get a billion of it.

And Cleveland's baseball team sports, a brand new identity.

We are all Cleveland Guardians.

"Ideas" is next.

(gentle music) - [Announcer] Brought to you by Westfield, offering insurance to protect what's yours, grow your business, and achieve your dreams.

(gentle music) (compelling music) - Hello and welcome to "Ideas."

I'm Mike McIntyre.

The Cleveland baseball team is now the Cleveland Guardians.

The team made the announcement in a video released this morning and narrated by Tom Hanks.

- [Tom] Because this is the city we love and the game we believe in, and together, we are all Cleveland Guardians.

- First Energy has agreed to pay a very hefty fine, $230 million, for its role in the House Bill Six scandal.

We'll get details on that in just a moment.

230 million is pocket change when compared to the settlement agreed to by three opioid distributors and one manufacturer this week.

They're ponying up $26 billion, though.

Not admitting to any wrongdoing.

Ohio stands to get a billion dollars from that settlement.

In other news this week, Cleveland's mayoral candidates discuss their views on the environment in a public forum as campaign season is now in full swing.

Woes at the West Side Market continued after a power failure last weekend.

And the Ohio State Fair opened, but you won't find rides, the demolition Derby, funnel cakes, or even spectators on the midway.

Is it still fair to call it a fair?

Joining me to discuss these stories and more, Ideastream Public Media health reporter, Lisa Ryan; multiple media producer, Gabe Kramer; and Statehouse News Bureau chief, Karen Kasler.

Let's get ready to round table.

This was the first time prosecutors have identified company A, long known to be First Energy.

In addition to the fine, the company has agreed to cooperate into the ongoing investigation in which two people have pleaded guilty.

Another, a lobbyist, charged in the scheme died by suicide in March.

Householder and lobbyist, Matt Borges, the former head of the Ohio Republican party, maintain their innocence.

And Randazzo has not been charged, though he resigned from the PUCO after the FBI raided his home in November.

All right, a lot to unpack here, big story.

Karen, the announcement was Thursday in Cincinnati.

What's been the reaction?

- Well, it's been pretty widespread.

I mean, certainly there were people who were saying that this was not completely unexpected.

As you mentioned, First Energy, the utility that was named in the indictment was never named by name, but there was always a suspicion that it was First Energy.

And, of course, this was confirmed yesterday.

It was an interesting morning, because it was a year and a day since Larry Householder, then a speaker of the Ohio House, and four other people were arrested and charged with what was the $61 million bribery scheme according to federal prosecutors to pass House Bill Six, the energy, the nuclear power plant bailout bill through the legislature.

And so, we just passed that one year anniversary.

That announcement had been made in Columbus a year ago.

This one was being made in Cincinnati.

So that was kind of interesting that the announcement would come out of Cincinnati, but it was pretty clear in the release that came out from the US attorney for the Southern District of Ohio that it was indeed First Energy admitting to these certain crimes and agreeing to pay $230 million.

When you compare that to the $61 million they're accused of spending here, that's a pretty big fine on top of that.

In fact, Vipal Patel, who is the acting US attorney for the Southern District of Ohio said it's the largest fee and fine that he can remember in that office.

The reaction has been certainly political, of course.

You had the Dayton mayor, Nan Whaley, who's challenging Mike DeWine on the democratic side next year for governor, saying that this is part of the corruption that's been happening here, and that she intends to use this as one of her campaign strategies, but this is an issue that Democrats have been talking about for a long time.

They talked about House Bill Six in the 2020 elections, and it didn't have a whole lot of traction.

Democrats were able to win only one seat in the legislature with it, and it was to knock off Dave Greenspan of Westlake who was a whistleblower in the House Bill Six case.

So I don't know what the final outcome is gonna be.

We're gonna have to possibly wait until next year to see what the political fallout of this is.

But my Statehouse News Bureau colleague, Joe Ingles, who did great work on this yesterday, also was reporting today about the calls now for more transparency for these dark money groups, because First Energy used a dark money group to get this money to the people it's accused of bribing to make all this happen.

- The dark money group, that was Generation- - Generation Now.

It's a 501c4, which is a nonprofit, and it's a social welfare nonprofit.

But as Patel said yesterday, it's hard to track what these things are and what they do, and that's part of the point.

There's dark money being used on the conservative side, the liberal side.

It's not exclusive to one party or one ideology or another, but the whole of it is it's dark.

You can't track the money that's going in, where it's coming out, and it makes it very difficult for people to know what's being spent and from whom.

I mean, when you go back to 2019, there was the whole effort to try to put the House Bill Six on the ballot.

And then there was an effort to try to stop that.

There was dark money in all of that, and that created campaigns and ads and flyers that featured the Chinese flag and all these things.

If you'll remember, that was quite a spectacle there, but it turned out Generation Now did the work it was supposed to do.

It made sure that that ballot issue didn't get to the ballot and voters did not get a chance to decide themselves to repeal House Bill Six.

- And Generation Now did so illegally and had since admitted to racketeering.

So we have that one fallen.

We have several of the lobbyists who have pleaded guilty, and we're left now with Matt Borges and Larry Householder, both claiming their innocence.

Where do we stand with that?

As you mentioned, it's been more than a year since the announcement that he was charged.

He's been expelled from the House.

He's not the House speaker, but what about the trial?

When is this happening?

- That's a really good question.

When I talked to David DeVillers, the former US attorney for the Southern District of Ohio who actually was the one who made the announcement a year ago that Householder and company had been arrested, he said that COVID has delayed a lot of this.

And so, he would expect typically a trial will be a year to 18 months from announcement of indictment.

Well, it could be longer than that.

We're now at a year.

So, we just don't know.

Now, Larry householder, yesterday, his lawyers put out a statement saying that First Energy had always claimed that the contributions that were in this, that are now at the center of this, were political contributions protected by the First Amendment, that First Energy has always claimed that.

And so for First Energy to reverse that claim, it's simply to protect their share price, and that Larry Householder is still innocent, and he has maintained his citizens all along.

Matt Borges, the former head of the Ohio GOP, who has also maintained his innocence, tweeted out last night that the one thing that's missing from all this information about First Energy yesterday is any mention of him, that his name did not come up.

And so he sees that as a sign and wants to promote that as a sign that he is indeed innocent.

Both of those people have not yet faced trial.

So we're still waiting to see what will happen with Borges and Householder.

- If we're following the money, we see Generation Now as a place where this money was kind of plowed through and that there were folks that enriched themselves and were able to affect the passage of HB6.

But there's another aspect of this, and that is money that went to Sam Randazzo, who was the chairman of the PUCO, and, in fact, it seemed as though, according to what I read yesterday, he was being groomed by First Energy long before he became chairman of the PUCO.

First Energy paid a company that he controls $4.3 million.

There are emails about how he's supposed to fix quote, "The Ohio hole," a problem that they were having, and they were afraid that there was gonna be a review, a rate review coming up, and they wanted to have that avoided.

Randazzo, though, yesterday claimed it was a consulting fee and he did nothing wrong.

- Yeah, and that's what he's been saying all along.

And, again, no charges have ever been filed against him.

His house was raided last year.

And right after that, he resigned as the chair of the Public Utilities Commission.

He was appointed by Mike DeWine, and DeWine put out a statement yesterday saying, if indeed, as the agreement with First Energy alleges, that Randazzo did accept $4.3 million from First Energy, which First Energy has admitted to in this deal, though, they didn't admit to paying a public official by name.

It just said they admitted to paying an elected official and a second public official, but SEC filing certainly point to Sam Randazzo as being that second public official.

DeWine says if indeed that's the case, he did not know anything about this.

And, of course, once again, that's the kind of stuff that is gonna come up in the campaign.

It's gonna come up in the primary, in the May primary next year where you've got Jim Renacci and Joe Blystone running against DeWine, and then you've got Nan Whaley gonna take on the winner of that Republican primary.

Well, Nan Whaley is the only announced candidate right now.

We're hearing that Cincinnati mayor, John Cranley, might join in.

I think we're getting a little bit of a preview of what that race is gonna be like and the attempt to tie DeWine to the House Bill Six scandal, which, again, has been described as the largest public corruption case in Ohio history.

- This is the Karen Kasler show you're listening to on 90.3, (Karen laughs) but we're gonna jump in with Lisa Ryan's got a thought here as well.

- Yeah, well, I'm listening to this, and, Karen, thanks so much for breaking this down, because this is really a complicated issue, but I'd like to say that at the heart of this is really just holding these companies accountable, because I'm thinking about all the Clevelanders who are having trouble paying their utilities, perhaps, whether it's electricity or water, and here's this company who has billions to spend on bribes and fines and stuff.

I know at the beginning of this, before the show even started, we were saying that we hope that it doesn't get passed on to the rate payers.

So, yeah, I'm just thinking about that and how there are a lot of people who are struggling to get by, and here's this company that is being held accountable.

- It reminds me of the idea that Nan Whaley brought up of transparency.

We need to find a way to make sure that politicians and First Energy gets held accountable for this.

So they need to provide some form of transparency, so that we can see how this money is being collected, how this money is being followed through.

So, I think about that idea, and it reminds me a lot of if First Energy got away with this in the first hand, how can we hold them accountable moving forward?

So I would expect Mike DeWine, as his feet are being held to the fire by Nan Whaley, to provide some sort of transparency, but we're not sure how that goes.

(compelling music) - The country's three largest drug distributors and drug maker, Johnson & Johnson, while denying wrongdoing, agreed to pay a $26 billion settlement, that's billion with a B, for their role in contributing to the deadly opioid addiction epidemic.

A bipartisan coalition of state attorneys general announced the deal this week.

40 plus states are expected to sign onto the deal.

including Ohio.

Karen, let's talk about Ohio.

How much will it get and when?

And there's a lot, by the way, that still has to come into play in terms of the number of states that sign onto this that determines how much money actually gets doled out.

- Right, I talked to attorney general, Dave Yost, about this yesterday.

He says gonna be about a billion dollars that Ohio will get out of this $26 billion settlement, which he describes as serious money and says it will go to help treat people and do education and prevention.

Of course, a lot of people have a question about whether that money will actually go to that, because people will remember the tobacco settlement several years ago and how some states use that tobacco settlement money, not necessarily for tobacco cessation, but to plug budget holes and do projects like that.

And it's been said to me several times that this money has guard rails in it to make sure that it really does go to communities to help them deal with the after-effects and to stop opioid addiction, because it's ravaged a lot of communities.

That's why you had 4,000 communities that joined in on this suit.

And right now, or sometime today, there's supposed to be a meeting with mayors and local officials to try to decide whether they're gonna sign on with this in Ohio and, I guess, a little bit about what's gonna happen next.

There still is some legal action out there.

The Purdue Pharma case is still out there according to Yost.

And also there is a lawsuit that was filed in Ross County in Ohio against the manufacturers that still continues, but this one's a major, major settlement.

It takes three of the distributors and J & J out of that whole realm there and puts them in the settlement space, and then states have to now sign on to it.

- All right, let me get into some of those details, and then Lisa ask a question of you.

So to get the full payout, they're going to need the maximum payment.

It would require at least 48 states, 98% of litigating local governments, and 97% of the jurisdictions that have yet to sue.

This is information that's being reported nationally.

States will have 30 days to decide whether to sign on to the agreement, but electing to participate only guarantees 55% of its share of the settlement as a base amount.

The other 45 is contingent on the states through legislation or agreements, being able to get political subdivisions on board and assuring the companies and end to the litigation.

What they want is to pay and not get sued anymore.

So there's a lot of these kinds of machinations going on.

And there are states that are absolutely already saying, "Forget it, we're not in.

"We don't think this is a good enough deal."

Can you tell me about why they're saying that?

- Yeah, well, West Virginia- (Karen interjects) - I'm asking Lisa.

- Sorry, go ahead.

Lisa you go.

- (laughs) Sorry, Karen.

So, yeah, West Virginia's attorney general has said that they are definitely not going to sign on to this.

And the reason for that is that they believe that the way that the money is being broken down, it's mostly going to the more populated states, and they believe that the less populated states, the more rural areas were hit harder.

And we did see that throughout the opioid epidemic.

We saw some of the more rural parts of even Ohio were hit especially hard by the opioid epidemic.

So, they say that they're not going to sign on, that they'll continue litigation and negotiation outside of the settlement.

It'll be interesting to see what happens, though, after this.

- And that's why the money would go down, because, essentially, as I said earlier, the companies are saying, "We're gonna pony up the whole 26 billion "if we're not gonna get sued anymore."

So if these suits are still coming from other places, it'll be less that they would be contributing to this.

Karen, what were you gonna say?

- [Karen] Lisa said it all.

(all laugh) It's all good.

- I'm glad to hear that.

So this won't be the end of the opioid settlements or lawsuits at this point then?

- Yeah.

I mean, we're looking to not only these manufacturers, though, or the distributors, we're seeing manufacturers continue to be sued, and that's what attorney general Dave Yost has said too, that Ohio will continue some of those lawsuits with other places like pharmacies.

We'll see CVS potentially being sued as well.

So a lot of different possibilities for lawsuits far into the future.

(compelling music) - Candidates for Cleveland mayor shared their thoughts on the environment and how they will address problems during a forum Wednesday evening, focusing specifically on environmental justice.

When it came to sustainability and sustainable transportation, what do the candidates have to say?

- Well, you think about Bike Cleveland being there and the Clevelanders for Public Transit being there.

Every single candidate made sure to mention sustainable transportation, whether it was increased bike lanes, or increased protected bike lanes, and improving bus routes and increasing the number of bus routes.

- Pedestrian safety as well?

- Pedestrian safety as well.

Ross DiBella, one of the candidates, he kept using the term he wants to fight culture in this reliance for Clevelanders to be reliant on cars and driving for their commute.

And he borrowed a similar cadence by saying a few times he wants to make public transportation popular again.

And Justin Bibb, who spent time on the Regional Trans Authority Board, RTA Board, vowed to use RTA bike lanes in office.

He's said he's gonna walk the walk.

And I suppose you could take that literally, 'cause he said every neighborhood needs to prioritize pedestrian over cars.

So if he's an office he's going to continue to use those modes of transportation.

Sandra Williams, state Senator, touted her efforts in the state Senate, talking about how early this year, the Senate was able to add to the budget $25 million that helped pay for the RTA, and that money is intended to bring in more buses and improve train cars for the city.

But one thing that really struck out to me was when Zach Reed said there's a lot more protected bike lanes on the West side than there are on the East side.

And for him to say that he's basically saying if we provide more protected bike lanes on the East side, we can change that culture tremendously to have both sides of town really more minded for pedestrians, bike lanes, and hopefully more people wanting to use transit.

- By the way, Bike Cleveland refutes that and says that there are bike lanes that are essentially equally distributed.

And they would love to see more on the East side and more on the West side as well, But it's seen as sort of a West side darling.

It's interesting that what was really brought out and what is true in Cleveland is that it's a car centric culture.

We drive everywhere.

And did they address how that might change the idea that everyone wants a better highway ramp, a third lane, or a fifth lane or whatever it might be?

That's really been the culture here.

How would they attack that?

- I think what people were hoping to hear were things that were going to really force the hand of citizens to not rely on cars, which would be fewer parking lots, which would be things like fewer surface lots, but these weren't things that were necessarily brought up.

It was more so being proactive in the things that we think that people were there to hear about, which were bike lanes and improved transit.

- What about plant a tree?

So that sounds like a really easy campaign slogan, but we have a horrible percentage of tree canopy in Cleveland.

That's a big environmental issue.

Was it brought up?

- It was definitely brought up, and everybody wanted to talk about the tree canopy, and we need to address it, and we didn't make it a priority, but there weren't any candidates that had any real specific plans about how to attack it.

But going hand in hand with the tree canopy is green spaces, parks.

Parks have trees.

The candidates had a lot to say about how we can bring more parks to the city.

And Sandra Williams talked about how she would like to take some of the properties controlled by the Cleveland Land Bank and turn those into parks, turn those into green spaces in some neighborhoods.

And she talked about how she'll go knocking on doors, and she'll ask some citizens, "Where's your closest park," or, "Where's your closest rec center," and they'll have no idea.

They won't have anything to say.

And I think this is an issue that when people talk about the green spaces or lack of green space in the city, even in an urban area, it provides you somewhat of an escape.

I've talked to residents in Asiatown constantly hoping to have some kind of green space, especially for the senior citizens live in that area, a place to escape to and find the green area where they're not just always cooped up in their apartments or in their houses, especially last year where we were cooped up pretty good.

(compelling music) - Vendors are once again, calling for a change in management at the West Side Market, after a power outage Saturday brought businesses to a halt and, in some cases, resulted in spoiled goods for merchants.

The incident is bringing renewed attention to the lack of resources including a backup generator in the historic building.

Gabe, we've been reporting on this forever.

And in fact, in January, 2020, we took the Sound of Ideas to Market Garden Brewery adjacent to West Side Market and heard a lot of these issues.

People are talking about wanting to have an independent nonprofit management company that might run it, not the city.

Candidates for mayor all got on Twitter and were talking about what oughta happen here.

This has been an issue since then.

It continues.

It persists.

- Absolutely, I mean, we talked about like a year and a half ago.

I think you were there at that SOI, that Sound of Ideas conversation?

I'm pretty sure.

- I think I hosted that.

- It was packed.

I mean, that room was packed of people who were not just vendors, but people who were customers at the West Side Market who are very upset with what is often seen as one of the pride and joys of Cleveland to really see it fall apart.

So things have just gotten worse.

And when I saw that tweet from Kate's Fish, one of the vendors, and I couldn't believe that they don't have a backup generator.

I mean, I live a couple par fives away from the West Side Market and I'm thinking to myself, my power goes out all the time.

If I was running this business, I would want some kind of backup power.

So I couldn't believe that that happened.

And last February, the city did hire a consultant to look at the West Side Market and look at things, but it's almost August, and we're not seeing any progress.

We're seeing things continually get worse and worse and worse.

So, not a lot of progress.

Things are getting worse.

And we talk about that idea of should the city consider hiring an outside firm to take a look at things?

Rick Jackson, another Sound of Ideas hosts, and I went to- - The Sound of Ideas host.

- The Sound of Ideas host.

I don't know if you're familiar with Rick Jackson, but the two of us went to Cincinnati early in 2020, and we checked out the Findlay Market there.

And the Findlay Market there is beautiful, and it's constantly winning awards or getting recognized for being one of the best, if not the best markets in the entire country.

And you can see it's a well-oiled, smooth running machine.

And they are managed by a nonprofit that the city has determined that they are gonna manage it, and we're just going to continue to own it.

So, that's something that, I think, should really be considered moving forward in terms of West Side Market if things continue to go this way.

(compelling music) - Well, I guess it's an improvement over last summer when the Ohio State Fair was canceled.

It's open now, but don't look for snowcones, fried anything, the famous butter sculpture, or midway rides.

In fact, you won't be able to look for anything at all, because the fair is actually closed to spectators.

Is it fair to even call it a fair?

- It's less than fair, I'll tell you that, 'cause it's really kind of a morose, not fair.

(laughs) I mean, I love the Ohio State Fair.

I unabashedly adore the Ohio State Fair.

And to see the pictures and to see the images of the fair just the midway with nothing on it, no sky glider, no food vendors, no rides, and you can't even go and see the livestock exhibitions and the agricultural elements that are the main part of the fair, all that's closed down.

It's really disappointing.

County fairs are going on, but the State Fair had to make a decision early on whether they were gonna go forward or not.

They made the decision out of (indistinct) caution not to go forward, because of the pandemic.

And so this is the second year in a row where people have not been able to go to the fair, and it's disappointing, but the hope is still that at least the kids who raised the livestock can continue their participation in this, because it certainly is, in many cases, a family business.

It's part of what they've done for years.

And then maybe next year.

(compelling music) - Cleveland's baseball team took to Twitter Friday morning with a video narrated by Tom Hanks to announce their new name, the Guardians.

Karen, what do you think of that?

- I love it.

Anything but spiders, that was always my thing.

(laughs) - [Lisa] I loved the spiders.

- I don't, no, no, no.

(Lisa laughs) Ew, ew, no, no.

(Lisa laughs) So, I'm happy.

It's all right, I'm good.

- I was excited about that too.

That was my front runner.

And in fact, I was talking to my son last night, knowing this was coming, and I said, "Do you think it's gonna be Guardians?"

And he said, "Yeah, they only have to change "the first half of the scoreboard."

(all laugh) D-I-A-N-S is already there.

So, they're gonna save a little bit of money on letters.

- They love saving money.

(Mike laughs) - I like Guardians.

That would be- - Oh, ouch, man.

- The video, I just looked at it and wasn't able to listen, but at the beginning of the video, there is this beautiful image of the Stone Guardians, which is so iconic in Cleveland.

So, there you go, folks, the Cleveland Guardians.

Get ready to root for them.

And that's going to wrap up our show.

Coming up Monday on the Sound of Ideas, Ideastream Public Media education reporter, Jenny Hamel, will be here to talk about the return to school as the delta variant rises.

Will students be masked?

Cleveland public school kids will be.

I'm Mike McIntyre.

Thanks for listening and stay safe.

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