A grand jury has indicted former first energy executives and the state's former utility watchdog in the House Bill six.

Bribery scandal.

They pleaded not guilty.

The Cleveland schools are facing tough choices that they must make up for a budget shortfall.

And Cuyahoga County opens a new welcome center for immigrants and refugees.

It's part of the county's strategy to grow the region's population.

Ideas is next.

Hello and welcome to Ideas.

I'm Mike McIntyre.

Thanks for joining us.

The former CEO of Akron based First Energy and another top executive pleaded not guilty in Summit County Common Pleas Court this week after being indicted on state felony charges.

Also charged in the SB six bribery scandal, the state's former top utilities watchdog, the new CEO of the Cleveland Metropolitan School District, says Deep cuts must be made to balance the district's books due to the end of federal pandemic assistance money.

Joining me for the roundtable from ideastream, public media supervising producer for newscast Gwen Forbes and health reporter Taylor Wisner.

And in Columbus, Statehouse News bureau chief Karen Kasler.

Let's get ready to roundtable former first energy CEO Chuck Jones, former vice president of External Affairs Michael Dowling, and former Public Utilities Commission of Ohio.

Chairperson Sam Randazzo.

All were indicted on state felony charges this week related to the HP six bribery scandal.

Karen.

Attorney General Dave Yost in announcing the indictments, said they were the check writers and masterminds behind the bribery scheme and they needed to be held accountable.

How does he say the scandal worked?

Well, this the state charges continue the story that was told with the federal case, which of course, was a trial last year, two trials actually for Larry Householder, the former Republican speaker of the Ohio House and Republican Party chair, former Republican Party chair Matt Borges.

They were convicted on federal racketeering charges.

Householders in prison for 20 years.

Borgias is in prison for five.

And their part of the scheme was that there was money that came from first energy to householder so he could build a team past House Bill six, the nuclear power plant bailout bill that had $1,000,000,000 in subsidies from all Ohio ratepayers to help these two nuclear plants owned by a first energy subsidiary.

And Borgias was then convicted of trying to keep that from ballot so voters couldn't repeal it.

So that's one part of it.

Then first, Energy has admitted to bribing Householder and Randazzo.

Randazzo was the head of the Public Utilities Commission, the state's utility regulator.

He was charged in December with federal charges related to all this on the state charges.

This is the first time we've seen charges against former FirstEnergy CEO Chuck Jones and former senior vice president for external affairs, Michael Dowling.

And they're accused of paying the money to the bribe to Randazzo, $4.3 million.

And then Randazzo is accused of working for first energy from inside the government as Puco chair.

So this didn't seem to be in doubt, although obviously they've pleaded not guilty to.

Their lawyers say there's a whole lot more to the story.

But when we saw First Energy say, yep, we bribed these people.

And and then when you look at documents that say who at first energy would have been the people involved in that, the CEO and the top lobbyist.

It seems like those dots connect.

What what are we hearing then from the defendants about why they believe there's no basis for an indictment and there's no guilt here?

Well, they've been saying in various situations that they've done nothing wrong.

I mean, Chuck Jones was on a first energy earnings call right after the scandal broke in June 20, 20, saying that we are cooperating fully.

And FirstEnergy has said all along that they are cooperating fully.

And you saw that with the deferred plea agreement that they reached in 2021 where they admitted to bribing householder and and AZO and paid a $230 million fine.

And the question has always been, who actually authorized raised those bribes?

The first energy bribe, somebody.

Well, who actually authorized those?

And the state charges say that that blame lies squarely with Chuck Jones and Michael Dowling and that Sam Randazzo not only accepted the bribes, but also he's accused of setting up shell companies so that he could skim payments off of the existing clients.

He had to benefit himself.

Mike Mike Scherer, who's the editor of The Columbus Dispatch, wrote in an editorial this week, You know what has taken so long for reform, first of all?

And secondly, we're now a year later, and there are no felony charges from the federal side on this and ended up having to be a state thing.

There's been a lot of question about that, where you have a company that says we bribe somebody, but yet nobody in the company was held accountable.

It now come down to a Summit County grand jury to do that.

And I think in the federal system, it does take a while.

But there of course, there is the the question I mean, it's going to be four years in June from the arrests of Householder Borgias and all the other folks who were arrested.

And two of the people who were arrested were cooperating with investigators and with federal prosecutors.

And, of course, First Energy had that deferred plea agreement.

And there was a plea agreement for generation now a dark money group that was involved here.

But these things do take time if you're trying to build a case that's strong with a lot of complicated evidence and a lot of moving parts.

I mean, when you think about the Randazzo charges in particular, he's accused of setting up companies going back years and years.

This this whole potential thing goes back many years, even before 2019, when House Bill six was actually put forward.

Here was an interesting development that happened as this indictment was being rolled out.

$4.3 million was paid to Randazzo by FirstEnergy before he was appointed.

The state's utility watchdog.

And the chief of staff of Governor Mike DeWine had testified that she knew about that.

And the question then becomes, what does the governor know about it?

I know that question was put to him yesterday.

I know that he answered it and said I knew nothing about it.

But there are a lot of people that are saying, how is it possible that your chief of staff would know and you didn't?

What kind of process do you use to appoint somebody to such a high position?

And I think he's been asked that several times and has said before, Hey, we knew that Salmond as a work for First Energy, but we didn't know that there was a payment, a certainly a payment of this size.

And Randazzo said that that payment was the closure of a consulting agreement, which when you think about it, a $4.3 million consulting agreement, that's a lot of money for a consulting agreement.

But it apparently didn't raise any red flags at the time.

So, of course, the question does become, did the the chief of staff make a mistake in not telling DeWine or is DeWine telling us the truth and saying he didn't know?

He says, now, if we had known, we would not have we his staff would not have gone ahead with the appointment of Sam Randazzo to head the public utilities Commission.

So he's saying now, at least if I'd known all the facts, I would not have appointed him to that position.

The big key here is when you use the word we and I use the word I, if it's I, that means the governor didn't know.

But when he says we, the testimony by his chief of staff was she did know.

Yeah.

And I think sometimes in government we hear people going back and forth between we and I.

And I think when you start looking at words really carefully like that, you do have questions.

Of course.

But and I think this is one of the things that is going to work itself out through some of the trials here.

I mean, the great thing about this, as opposed to federal charges is we will actually be able to potentially see what's going on here in Suffolk County Court when these trials go forward.

If they do if there aren't plea deals that are worked out.

So we might find out some more information about that.

But I'm not a lawyer.

I'm not sure that not telling the governor about this payment is illegal, but it certainly doesn't look good.

Glenn FirstEnergy paid $230 million, just as Karen said.

They entered a deferred prosecution agreement that all happen in 2021.

Now we hear the Akron Beacon Journal reporting the new round of indictments and all of that are raising questions about the company's future in Akron.

Yeah, there is some concern about that, particularly if FirstEnergy is sold.

That comes from Chuck Kuyper, executive director of the Northeast Ohio Public Energy Council.

That's for you, Mike.

That stands for no PAC.

Thank you.

Yes, that's basically what he's saying.

Listen, if FirstEnergy is sold, multiple state interests could be broken into some pieces.

Some could not only leave Akron, but Ohio.

He calls it a valid concern.

That's what he told the Akron Beacon Journal.

And beyond that, we have a first Entergy already announcing that they were going to sell their 19 story office tower down to a in downtown Akron.

That announcement came in January.

Energy Harbor, a spinoff company of First Energy.

They're going to merge with Texas based Vistra and they're going to relocate their headquarters from East Market Street on Akron down to Texas.

So we've seen I don't want to call them dominoes because we don't know if they're all going to fall.

But we've seen some of these pieces kind of moving just like in the case.

Right.

We've seen some of these pieces of first energy kind of moving around and that is causing concern for the people in Akron.

Meanwhile, Karen, people are still paying as a result of this legislation, this HB six regulation.

What am I legislation?

Legislation.

Thank you.

Resolution legislation.

Now, the nuclear bailout portion would have paid $1,000,000,000 over ten years.

First energy that's been repealed, but we're still paying for coal subsidies as part of that bill.

Yeah, this House bill six was huge.

And the indictment alleges that Sam Randazzo wrote part of it, and which is an interesting thing to consider in and of itself.

Not only does this affect FirstEnergy, but all these other areas as well.

I mean, it really stripped and gutted energy's ah and renewable energy policy and energy efficiency programs.

And it also allowed for subsidies for two coal fired power plants, one of which is in Indiana.

The other is in southern Ohio.

The one in southern Ohio is in the district of House Speaker Jason Stevens.

And so there have been no movements lately to try to repeal House Bill six, but Ohioans are still paying.

I think it's like $200 million, $300 million so far for subsidies for these two coal fired power plants.

And the Cleveland Metropolitan School District will make big cuts, but spare the classroom to close $143 million budget deficit projected for the end of the next school year.

The end of federal pandemic relief funds is partly to blame, according to the district tailor.

What type of cuts are we talking about here from the district?

Yeah.

So my colleague Connor Morris, our education reporter here at Ideastream, was on a call earlier this week with the CEO, Warren Morgan, who was talking about just this big deficit that we have to make up by the by this year.

They have to present a balanced budget.

And so some of the things we're looking at cutting are those afterschool programing programs that really grew during the pandemic.

Now, these are programs that aren't aren't run by the district, but by their partners.

So, you know, Warren Morgan is is really saying that he's trying to keep the cuts away from the classroom.

So no teacher cuts as much as he can.

And no academic programing cuts.

So, you know, those typical afterschool programs that the district runs will stay, he says.

And some other things.

Looking at cutting is the summer programing that also grew during the pandemic.

But he says they're still funding it pretty well, better than even before the pandemic.

TIMES So and then a couple other things.

I think the central office admin level, they're looking at cuts of about 25 positions.

He's going to appoint people at the various departments to kind of determine where they can make those cuts.

And then the teacher contracts this year are going to be negotiated.

And so he's looking at that.

You know, those margins are going to squeeze.

Teachers union said it was happy that he was leaving the cuts at the classroom door and not going inside.

On the other hand, they're going to have to negotiate a contract so that maybe that that piece doesn't last quite as long.

You did hear a lot of reaction to from groups that are pushing for these afterschool programs and how necessary they are, not just for educational enrichment, but to keep kids safe.

And so they're talking about, okay, we're going to try to go out and get some other funding.

And to that point, Glenn, the CEO says the cuts would be enough to give financial stability, but taxpayers may be asked to step in here and help with that.

Well, when is that not the case, Mike?

I mean, eventually the taxpayers are always asked to help.

But I mean, I'll say this.

So what Warren Morgan said was this is a multi-year process.

We've got to think about the challenges we have.

What resources do we need to pull?

Do we need additional funding?

And of course, where would that come from?

It would it would have to come from from the taxpayers.

But, you know, the other thing about this is, I think most people in this position have kind of learned their lesson, right?

You leave it open.

You don't say, no, we're not going to put a levy on the ballot, because then when you turn around and have to put a levy on the ballot, people are going to say, you lied.

You told us we weren't going to have a levy.

Now here's this levy on the ballot.

So certainly a possibility.

I mean, I think it always is with school districts.

Right.

Or any kind of government entity.

But it is possible that there could be another big levy in future years.

Not right now, but possibly in the future.

And the president of Cleveland City Council and Mayor Justin Bibb are in sync now on how money from a proposed special taxing district would be used to develop downtown and eventually plow money into neighborhoods.

So we told you last week about Bibbs proposal.

It's called Short a court issuer, and it's intended to divert taxes to the city for development of Cleveland's waterfront and downtown.

But the proposal hit a snag when Council President Blaine Griffin suggested that half the money raised would need to be earmarked for neighborhoods.

And immediately, we talked about that last week.

The two, though, announced yesterday they're in lockstep on a different plan where downtown is addressed first.

So let's start with that.

Glenn Griffin and Bibb issued a joint statement saying 35% of the excess would go to neighborhoods.

Do we have any idea what that terminology means?

35% of the excess.

Well, so originally Griffin wanted that money for the neighborhoods coming off the top.

So now what?

It seems like is, you know, Bibb is saying this isn't going to work unless we take the money and reinvest in downtown.

You know, you've heard previous administrations talk about this, too, right?

The idea that we've got to put money into the things that make money and in order to get more money.

Right.

So, Bibbs, whole thing is we need to put the money into the entertainment districts, the waterfront things.

We need to do that first and then the excess money.

35% of that can go to the neighborhoods.

Griffin's proposal was to peel that off the top as much as 50%.

And of course, now with this announcement, that looks much less likely and perhaps, you know, that proposal could be dead.

It seems like this might be an education for the council about how a tiff works, because you can say give us half the money as if it's just this one pot of money.

But Mayor Bibb said in a statement, the TIP district will only work if we make up front of investments to transform the waterfronts and grow the downtown, which means we need to preserve flexibility to access all funding sources.

Basically, where the money comes in is as you make development, then those taxes continue to pour into the fifth District.

And it's it's a multiplier on itself.

If you don't start with that, then then the dividends don't come.

The point is, is that this is a long term play and in order to get this, they're talking between 3.3 and $7.5 billion over this next 42 years.

The idea of the long term play is you have to keep reinvesting in what is making you money and if you want and this argument happens all the time whenever development is talked about in Cleveland, whenever there's a new stadium or a or an arena or anything like that, it's how much money is going to the neighborhoods which need it versus how much is going to, you know, the developers, right.

Who on paper don't need it.

But then the other argument is, like I said, those things make money.

So we need to put money into the things that make money.

Speaking of developers, one of the ideas floated in the press release yesterday was the idea that developers would have to pay community benefits agreements, essentially to pour into a fund that would help the neighborhoods.

If you want to build something, you've got to agree to give ten or $20 million or whatever it might be toward another project.

That's another way.

They're saying the neighborhoods could benefit more immediately.

And you see these in the in those kind of agreements that they have made with with arenas and sports facilities in the past is x amount of jobs have to go to Cleveland residents X amount have to go to minorities or however they however they draw that up.

And Griffin is talking about public improvements in neighborhoods to spur continual and necessary progress.

He's talking about Lee, Harvard, Central, Collinwood, Cam's corners.

You know, neighborhoods like that.

And it's kind of like, you know, the same idea.

We want continuous improvement.

We want continuous development not only in the downtown area, but also in the neighborhoods.

And I think what really spurred on this agreement is the fact that there's seems to be some sort of fear or trepidation that they don't know how long this window is going to be open to secure this funding.

So rather than get nothing and continue to fight about it, they figured out this compromise just basically by saying, hey, we need this money anyway.

We don't know how long the federal funding is going to be available.

We better get on the same page here.

It's one thing to say that, but when you start to then try to explain to people in neighborhoods why you're seeing a shiny downtown and they're not getting anything yet, and the wait your turn part will, it'll be interesting to see how that plays out.

I do want to note, too, that when you do a tax increment financing plan, you do plow money back into the downtown core in order to do this development.

But that money would have gone somewhere else and those taxes would have fund.

They exempt the Cleveland schools.

And we've talked about their financial woes, but they don't exempt the Health and Human Services levy for the county, nor is the county library exempted.

So those are two organizations that will not receive funding.

That would have been tax funding.

The answer to that from the city is essentially rising tide lifts all boats as we develop downtown.

Eventually more happens for these organizations.

Yeah, I.

Mean, you've certainly heard that argument made by the city quite a bit that as Cleveland, you know, develops and as Cleveland generates more tax revenue, this is the core of the county.

The county offices are here, county seat, you know, all that stuff that that will help.

Now, interestingly enough, a couple of weeks ago, the Safety Committee on County Council was talking about how the city is not doing their job when it comes to patrolling downtown and the police force, because the sheriff, who's a former Cleveland police deputy chief, the now sheriff of Cuyahoga County, has a special detail for downtown and Cuyahoga County Council, saying, wait a minute, this is $12 million or so more than we thought, more than we have budgeted.

What's the city of Cleveland doing to help?

So it'll be interesting to see how all of this works.

It's another, you know, big money play where you're going to have to shuffle things around here and there.

But yeah, it's that's that's the city's position and has been the city's position that as Cleveland goes, you know, as you know, the county goes as well.

Final thought here.

And that's a question from Darrell.

She says he says, sorry, can someone define what helping the neighborhoods mean?

So specifically, what Blake Griffin is talking about is development in these neighborhoods, correct?

Yeah, it's but it's all vague, right?

I mean, the statement itself was was pretty vague.

Community benefits, like we talked about, that the developers would deliver an unspecified windfall for these neighborhoods.

So utilities, all those aging infrastructure issues, the range of things that you see happen downtown and maybe don't happen in a particular neighborhood.

And we have seen this model before.

What does it mean for jobs?

What does it mean for investment in these neighborhoods?

It's again, there is some precedent for this.

They'll they'll draw something up that probably won't make everybody happy.

But that's the that's the nature of compromise.

Right.

And Ohio is installing advanced camera monitoring systems across the state to reduce serious crashes, especially rear end crashes, by warning drivers of slowdowns ahead.

The governor unveiled the new system on I-70 in Licking County, where three students and three adults traveling with the Tuscarawas Valley marching band died last November when a truck rear ended an SUV and the band's charter bus as the traffic slowed down in front of it.

So it's interesting because today, as LeVar was coming in to work from down south, I-77 North was closed at Grant Road, and so she had to get off and make her way in.

And there was a sign that told her that it was closed, but that was because it was way up in advance.

And somebody from ODOT typed that into a computer that appeared on the sign.

What this system would do would use cameras and make that an automatic thing.

Traffic is slowing.

Let's let people know in time so that they can get their foot on the brake.

Yeah, it's basically an early warning system.

I mean, it looks at right now there's 13 areas it's looking at that it determines are susceptible to these congestion in area situations and that can lead to these kind of chain reaction crashes.

And it puts up a message to drivers that are approaching this that, hey, there is this accident coming up and, you know, this is something to be aware of.

So hopefully people will read those messages.

These are the same billboards, of course, that everybody talked about.

They were reading, you know, for the all the funny messages and everything.

Well, now there's some more serious messages coming here that people hopefully will be able to read and slow down so that you don't end up with these rear end crashes and in all in in a row.

And Glenn, where are we going to see these?

Well, there's going to be three here in northeast Ohio, one or two, rather, in Cuyahoga County, 90, west, east, 55th, the state route to split.

That's known as the inner belt curve state route 176, north south of Denison, to the 7190 merge that's known as the Jennings.

And then in Summit County, Route eight at Howe Avenue, also six in central Ohio and four in southwest Ohio.

Those are the first 13 locations.

And as Karen pointed out, they have they picked those based on the data, according to Governor DeWine, that these are the most likely places to have serious rear end crashes.

So that's how they determined where they were going to put these.

And they determine that because they do have a wide network of cameras.

I mean, you can actually go online and see cameras that are on freeways throughout the state.

And so they can scan these cameras and those cameras then alert the system that there is this problem coming up, this congestion coming up, and then send that message to the billboard.

All right.

So we'll see how that works.

And certainly anything that can enhance safety is good.

Also distracted driving is something that is a damage to safety.

And this coincides, Karen, with the new distracted driving laws.

Yeah, this is something that DeWine has talked about a lot in terms of getting a law in place to try to combat distracted driving.

So these signs and these messages on billboards only work if you're reading them and not looking at your phone or something else.

So that's a big part of this.

And Cuyahoga County opened a welcome center in Cleveland's old Brooklyn neighborhood to provide resources for newcomers, especially immigrants and refugees.

And Taylor Cuyahoga County leaders say this area has a capacity to welcome new arrivals, that they're welcome and needed.

Yeah, it's interesting.

Cuyahoga County, you know, has has long sort of welcomed more immigrants.

And we seem to be growing.

You know, in 2012, I think 6.5% of the county's population were immigrants.

And that's grown to 7.6% on the latest 2022 data.

And we're actually being a nationally recognized were one of just a handful of other cities that have been recognized as doing more to help incoming immigrants.

So it just seems like another step in the direction of of really welcoming those folks into our community.

Welcoming isn't just, you know, glad you're in the neighborhood.

Here's a bundt cake, a welcome center in this case is really attaching services, connecting services to people.

Imagine if you're coming to the country, if there's a language barrier or just simply you're coming to a new place, how do you access all the possible services that are there now?

We would see that they'd all be in one place.

Yeah, it's this this really nice, like, continuation of of, you know, once people get here, it's so easily to, like, lose that grasp on on folks.

And obviously they, you know, they have their own communities that pop up in their own connections.

But to have a central place where they can, you know, get all of the services they need is is huge.

Monday on the sound of ideas on 80 97w WKSU The Sound of Ideas team is off for the president's Day holiday in the 9 a.m. and 9 p.m. timeslots.

The first two episodes of a series about the US Supreme Court from WNYC.

It's called More Perfect.

I'm Mike McIntyre.

Thank you so much for watching.

And stay safe.