Governor Mike DeWine says state agencies will help Cleveland improve public safety, not National Guard troops.

As a local congressman requested the Browns keep winning, just not on the field.

A roadblock to building a new complex in Brook Park was removed this week, and fallout from comments in the wake of Charlie Kirk's death.

A local fire chief was put on paid leave and two Suburban Council members resigned.

Ideas is next.

Hello and welcome to ideas.

I'm Mike McIntyre.

Thank you for joining us.

Crime is trending down in Cleveland since the pandemic.

But Mayor Justin Bibb says he's all for partnerships that could help to make the city safer.

Governor Mike DeWine says state agencies are ready to help.

Though he has no plans to send National Guard troops into Ohio's cities.

Congresswoman Max Miller of Bay village, though, says that's exactly what needs to happen.

Fallout.

Prompted by reactions to the killing of Charlie Kirk continue.

Cleveland's fire chief was placed on paid administrative leave because he shared a cartoon on social media that the mayor called insensitive and incendiary.

State report cards for public schools are out, and though Cleveland fell from a star rating of 3 to 2 and a half.

School administrators say they're proud of improving proficiency in all tested areas.

Akron jumped from two and a half to three and a half stars, driven in part by a new component that measures how well schools prepare students for college careers or military service.

The same new measure that torpedoed Cleveland Score and the Ohio Department of Transportation has approved a permit for the Browns proposed Brook Park Stadium complex, saying its height does not impose an aviation safety concern.

Joining me for those stories and the rest of the week's top news from Idea Stream Public Media.

Local government reporter Abby Marshall and education reporter Connor Morris in Columbus.

Statehouse News Bureau chief Karen Kasler let's get ready to roundtable.

Congressman Max Miller, a Republican from Bay village, said in an opinion piece in The Washington Times that his suburban constituents are afraid to come into Cleveland because of crime.

He wants the National Guard to deploy in Cleveland.

But governor Mike DeWine says state agencies will help make Ohio City safer.

And he has no plans to deploy troops.

Miller cites statistics that he says shows an issue with crime.

He says it's out of control and needs to be handled.

But if you look at statistics, statistically crime has been trending downward since the pandemic.

Yeah, and that's not just specific to Cleveland.

Across the nation, we've seen a drop in crime.

But here in Cleveland specifically, homicides fell nearly 30% in the first six months this year compared to the same period last year.

We've also seen a drop in other violent crime, such as rape, robbery, aggravated assault, things like that.

And that is something that Mayor Justin Bieber has attributed to this Rise initiative, which is, raising investment and safety for everyone.

I believe it is, which has leveraged a lot of these state and local partnerships to try to, you know, get guns off the street, and really crack down on some of that violent crime, especially in these summer months where we see crime pick up.

But really, across the country, we have seen a drop in, in violent crime.

Max Miller's neighbors in Bay village don't generally experience homicide in their towns.

They don't generally walk to Cahoon Park and perhaps get mugged.

Or there might be a shooting that does happen in a big city like Cleveland.

And so the what they'll equate that to is then Cleveland is unsafe, unlike my community.

Well, I think I mean, I can even point to what happens on my block.

Like, last week in my neighborhood, there was a Saint Ignatius student that was held up at gunpoint and carjacked.

You know, that isn't probably happening in Bay village.

Again, that was close to home.

It's not that I feel particularly unsafe.

It's just also two.

You have to take into account that Cleveland has a lot more people than a lot of the suburbs.

So as there's more people, there's going to be more crime.

Karen, Max Miller and Senator Bernie Marino keep hammering a message that the city is unsafe and lawless.

And statistics are not.

The perception is, Abby said, is shared by people who may not come into Cleveland or any other city.

Often it isn't a perception problem in a number of, of, urban cities and in Ohio.

Yeah.

And it's been a Republican talking point for a while.

I mean, Ohio's own vice president, JD Vance, brought it up in July in canton when he talked about downtown Akron, downtown Kat and downtown Columbus and coming into those cities for a meal.

And you're worried that lawlessness is running wild.

Those were his words.

And the mayors of those communities kind of push back, said, no, that's that's not what's happening here.

And so I think this is this narrative that you've heard Republicans talk about, about Democratic run cities and that they can't be relied upon to be safe for people who don't live there.

And I, I think that's been pointed out multiple times by Trump and others that this is justification for potentially sending in the National Guard or doing some of these other things.

There is real crime in some cities.

That's absolutely true.

I mean, Cleveland has a higher crime rate than Washington DC, and so does Toledo and Dayton, but other cities don't.

But the the perception is really a big problem.

So people coming in from rural areas, from suburban areas, they may not want to come to those cities and bring their economic, activity if they feel that there be unsafe there.

All right.

If you want to weigh in.

So I at Ideo stream.org is the way to do that.

So it was not a question that there is crime.

The question is what's being done about it.

And in Cleveland, as Abby mentioned, there's the Rise initiative and there's all kinds of efforts, to, to handle that.

Should the National Guard come in, is really the question.

And governor Mike DeWine gives that a hard no.

What does he have as an alternative?

And he says, by the way, that Justin Bibb, the mayor of Cleveland, wants it.

It's not that he's saying, hey, we're fine without you.

We're good.

He's saying, bring in the help, but he doesn't want the National Guard.

What is DeWine proposing?

These efforts in Cincinnati and Cleveland to bring in a multi-agency team, which DeWine talks about being, you know, liquor control agents, a team that brings in, I guess, some sort of air surveillance, a team that helps share information among agencies.

He says that's a better use, and state troopers being a part of that, that's a better use than the National Guard.

And when I spoke to him earlier this week, I was specifically asking him about whether he would be on board with sending the National Guard to other cities in other states like Memphis and Chicago, who we've heard President Trump talk about as being potential areas where National Guard could be deployed.

He said that that's different, that the Washington, DC, National Guard mission is very limited, even though it's been extended until November 30th.

But when it comes to Ohio cities, he really wants to do this multi-state agency proposal.

And he says he's working with local lawmakers like you just mentioned, Cleveland Mayor Justin Bibb.

He said that's the appropriate way to do this local police, local agencies trying to work on specific problems rather than National Guard.

He says they have a different mission and they would not be.

That's not the appropriate tool for the state to use.

The Haslam Sports Group got approval from the Ohio Department of Transportation this week to build a stadium in Brook Park.

Odot originally denied a permit because the stadium encroaches on airspace near Cleveland Hopkins International Airport.

Odot determined, though, that it poses no safety threat, Odot said, because the city and the city's airport director opposed it, it was too high that we're going to deny you a permit.

Even though the FAA said it posed no safety hazard.

Now, we've had a little bit of time, a thorough review, by the Ohio Department of Transportation.

And they're saying it doesn't provide or present a safety hazard.

Right.

So that FAA study, which has to go into place, that doesn't actually make any final decisions.

They basically say, here are are the potential hazards.

And they did note that, you know, this does go into 458 the, I believe, of federal air, airspace.

So that was the concern.

And that's why Odot originally said either reduce the height or find somewhere else to build.

And I went to the airport and spoke to the airport director who said, you know, they're against the this because of operation and safety concerns.

However, the FAA did say, you know, this doesn't actually pose a hazard.

It does intrude in that airspace.

But they issued a no hazard finding.

So Odot had been in communication with the Haslam at the time that I was at the airport and speaking to those officials, but it seems like they've reversed course and said, you know what, it's fine.

I think the airport director didn't do himself any favors when he was asked specifically what the hazards were or what safety concerns were, and he just said, it's just too tall.

Like he didn't get any.

I'm not a pilot.

I can't speak to that.

He didn't really give any specifics of what that meant.

Despite us as reporters in the room asking that question.

So it is kind of ambiguous of what that is.

We just know that that does intrude that airspace and some of the points that had been brought up by the Haslam as well, and some of the reporters in the room, is that, you know, the Haslam have asserted that buildings already exist within that exceeded height.

Why why is it just this structure?

And he said he couldn't really speak to them.

They're saying put lights on it.

And, whatever the safety stuff is and it's not necessarily going to be in the flight pattern or bother any of the traffic that they.

Okay.

So now that's moving along.

The director of Port Control opposed it, as we mentioned.

Karen, it seems unlikely a state agency would derail this project, given that state money is already approved for the construction.

Why is it that Odot, originally gave a denial?

Does it just listen to the locals?

I honestly am not sure.

But you're right.

I think at this point there.

This is the money, is there?

I think the state may be kind of out of that part of it.

I do know, though, from talking to the people in Cleveland, that there were still some concerns about the traffic flow in the area on the ground, not in the air.

You know, when you've got flights coming into Hopkins, which I believe is still the busiest airport in the state, and then you've got football traffic coming in and out.

How do you manage all of that happening so that people don't miss their flights and that sort of thing?

So there are still some logistics I think that can be worked out, but it sure feels at this point, at least from my perspective here in Columbus, that this is an inevitable project that's moving forward, even though there are, of course, lawsuits and other things that are still happening.

It feels like this is something that's already moving in that direction.

You mentioned, traffic and, game day and parking.

That's what I hear from a lot of Browns fans.

They're still diehards that would want to go to games.

One, they don't know what the ticket prices are going to be.

They're going to be massive.

And then secondly, how am I going to get in and out of one place to park?

And how much is that going to cost me?

These are all things that will come down the line once this all starts getting built.

Yeah.

And is there going to be an RTA station there?

I mean, is there going to be rapid access?

It's close by because as I understand it, the closest RTA station is like a half a mile or a mile away or something where it's it's not like it is at the waterfront stop where you can just get right off and go to the stadium right.

Charlie Kirk's funeral will be held Sunday in Arizona.

In the week since his murder, we've seen the limits of free speech put to the test.

National figures like Jimmy Kimmel and local folks like Cleveland's fire chief and two suburban council members have suffered consequences.

Abby, you reported on the city of Cleveland placing Fire Chief Anthony Luke on paid leave due to a social media post about Kirk.

What's the story with that now?

Yeah, so there were two first responders that had already been under investigation for posts related to Kirk's death.

And Anthony Luke reposted a cartoon, in which a gun was on a pedestal and assault rifles on a pedestal.

And there were elephants and shoots kneeling down to that gun and someone saying, bring out the the next sacrifice.

Mayor Justin Bibb described that, cartoon, not not completely described, but said that that raised concerns.

And he said that that post romanticize gun violence, even though the cartoon said, you know, this is condemning gun violence.

But basically, Bibb said you are held to a higher responsibility as an elected official.

Replacing you on paid administrative leave like this is not acceptable.

Even if it didn't romanticize gun violence.

The timing of this and the aftermath, this is exactly the kind of things that people are getting in trouble for, whether they're making comments or forwarding other posts or in this case, a cartoon.

Yeah, absolutely.

And this is something that is a big concern right now as we talk about First Amendment protections and things like that.

So I, you know, this is something that we're seeing not only with officials working for the government, but also elected officials, which are notoriously harder to remove from office.

But they're we're we're seeing cases in Northeast Ohio where people are resigning, because they're making comments, you know, in Fairview Park, the council president stepped down because he made a comment, that many said was insensitive.

And he said that backlash has kind of overshadowed the work.

So he was just going to step away.

Now, Michael Cobain, who said a lot of a lot of good people died.

He wasn't one of them.

Right.

And then we had the vice president in Monroe Falls of Council.

He resigned following a post as well.

And he's also under investigation from his employer, University Hospitals, which then kind of begs the question of, what can and can't people say, public versus private employers, that sort of thing?

It's very complicated.

But I did get into it with a First Amendment lawyer.

If only we had a reporter that talked to a lawyer about that, or a show on the side of ideas who talked to an employment lawyer as well, what do we find out?

Yeah.

So it's it's basically the the short answer is, yeah.

An employer, a private employer can fire someone for any reason.

Most employees are at will.

So unless you have tenure or some sort of employment protection, they can fire you for basically any reason.

Now, in the public sector, when you're a government official, you actually have some protections in terms of you don't give up that First Amendment right.

However, it if it's seen as overshadowing or affecting your work in any way, especially the more public facing you are, then you can be fired or punished for what you say, especially if people are seeing that and they're worried about how they're going to be treated.

Like, for example, in law enforcement, if a police officer were to say something about, you know, something derogatory, and then people are worried about their constitutional policing and things like that.

You're kind of held to a different standard there.

The main thing, that I learned was this case last year that came forward called the NRA versus VLO, I think is now it's pronounced in which government, the Supreme Court last year ruled that government officials are not allowed to pressure employers to fire employees indirectly by threatening sanctions or things like that.

So so what does that mean for the FCC?

Right.

Well, it's it's funny because I reported out the story and it published the day of the Jimmy, the Jimmy Kimmel Live show being canceled.

So I, I, I'm reading things where it's like, he might have a case against, you know, the FCC chair or things like that, because there is a Supreme Court precedent now, I'm sure we'll see that played out in the future.

But one thing that I spoke to First Amendment, lawyer Andy Geronimo at Case Western, and he said he's kind of concerned, you know, a lot of this has always been subjective, right?

But when you're looking at government agencies, you're hearing JD Vance saying things like, call people's employers if you're seeing things about First Amendment protections.

He talked about this thing called the Heckler's veto, where you can't basically, I don't want to say cancel because we're talking about cancel culture and like the back and forth on that.

But you can't go after someone if if just because there's public backlash, that means that in some ways you should protect that speech more, to kind of protect that First Amendment right.

An email from Marc from Hudson, though, who says, for what it's worth, free speech is no different than any other socially acceptable or unacceptable behaviors.

You're free to do whatever you want as long as it's legal.

But that doesn't mean there won't be backlash or people won't find your behavior socially unacceptable.

Free speech doesn't mean free from backlash, and says it's fascinating to watch people who celebrated cancel culture for years now lose their minds when just a tiny bit happens the other direction, he says.

Irony truly is dead.

And that's Mark's viewpoint from Hudson moving along to colleges, though this this, shooting happened on a college campus.

Karen and Sarah Donaldson reported about how this has rattled college students in Ohio who are involved in political groups on campus.

Yeah, you've got groups that have been organizing these kinds of outdoor events for decades, really.

I mean, college campuses have been a place where these kind of activities happen, sometimes organically, sometimes because they were arranged that way.

And so she talked to some, a Republican at one college and a Democrat at a college about what do you do now?

And certainly you've got some who are saying, well, it feels like you can't have these outdoor events because of the concerns about safety.

And there are some real questions about how to improve safety for everybody who's at some of these outdoor public events without restricting those folks from coming to those events.

And so, yeah, there's a real struggle.

I think, here, especially among, you know, these students who are trying to bring speakers to campus, who are trying to arrange activities, but are also trying to keep themselves and the speakers safe.

And so it's it's a it's a tough situation, I think, for a lot of kids to be in, but yet they still want to encourage that kind of debate.

And of course, all of us also comes in with Senate Bill one as the backdrop.

That's, of course, the higher education overhaul that said that it was intended to improve and protect free speech on campus.

And I talked to the sponsor, Senator Jerry Serino, this week about is this cancel culture when you start having, professors at Clemson and UCLA and Fresno State, University of Mississippi, University of Arkansas, you know, there's a whole laundry list of places where professors have lost their jobs because of comments that have been made.

And he had said he doesn't like cancel culture.

Well, is this cancel culture?

And he kind of went back to what we've just been talking about, about if you are in the public eye, if you are affiliated with an institution that gets public money, you're kind of at a different standard.

And so that's that.

He feels that there's a professional standard that you should hold yourself to because of the association you have with this public entity.

Akron Public Schools jumped up an entire star and the state's new public school report cards from two and a half to three and a half, while Cleveland went down from 3 to 2 and a half stars.

Cleveland's dip and Akron's bump are attributed to the same thing a new rating of how well districts prepare students for college careers or the military.

Conner.

How can this same rating, this new system that says, are they ready for after high school, be something that depresses Cleveland and lifts Akron?

Yeah.

So Akron, they've got this long standing college and career academies structure where students, basically get kind of on the job experience.

There are employers that are working with the school district.

So that and they've actually even adopted some of these kind of academies.

Like Goodyear, for example.

You know, Akron's the Rubber City.

And so these students are getting real life experience, and it's really proved successful in this new, measure.

Basically, there's a simple or kind of like retail track that students can take to that.

Some opponents argue, well, is that really preparing them for a high paying job after they're like, what are you going to do with this retail kind of certificate?

But it's at least something that they've got this model in place for a long time.

Cleveland, on the other hand, they say we've really struggled this with this measure for a long time.

Our our students are not really generally wanting to go to college after they graduate.

We don't really have enough investment in individual schools to have this really high quality model of kids are getting this this job experience.

At each individual school, there are some schools in Cleveland for sure that have this high quality model.

But they say, you know, this is kind of why we need to do this consolidation that we've been looking at for a while.

We really need to to push resources into each individual school and have to close some others.

It's interesting because the rating system has changed over the years, and I think we've been on this star system for three years now, so you think you'd have some consistency.

You can compare apples to apples last year to the next year.

But yet there's one more new thing.

This is this is new.

And the city of Cleveland is not making excuses.

The superintendent said, we've got to step up and and do better.

But the fact of the matter is, in all the metrics for proficiency, the students did better in Cleveland.

So you would think that the report card would get even more burnished.

But instead it gets tarnished.

It was a small jump in achievement for for a lot of Cleveland School students.

But the district says, hey, look, we're really trying on this measure.

And the district, for the first time last year, I did get three out of five stars, kind of like the middle, kind of like meeting state standards.

And they said they hadn't really ever done that in the recent history of these report cards.

So that was a big deal for them.

And now they're seeing this and it's a little bit of a blow.

But again though it's still for all of these urban school districts Akron Cleveland, Columbus, the proficiency in reading and math, like in third grade, for example, it's still really low.

It's like like one inch three students, 40%, maybe an actress a little bit better than Akron.

But but yeah, there's still a lot of kids that are really struggling.

And teachers say it's not the kid's fault and not even a teacher's fault.

There's just a lot going on in these kids lives that they're dealing with a lot of poverty and other issues.

Yeah.

We got a note from a listener who said in our coverage the other day, why didn't you mention lead poisoning and the effect that that can have on students scores?

Yes.

Lead poisoning, poverty, crime rates in some neighborhoods, all kinds of trauma.

There's a lot of things that students in those districts deal with that students and other districts might not.

Yeah, we did some reporting about, chronic absenteeism.

It's in Cleveland.

It's more than half.

It's like 55% of students are chronically absent, which means they miss 10% of the school year or more.

In Akron, it's pretty similar.

It's about 40% in these urban school districts.

It's very high.

It's a problem, you know, and statewide, the absenteeism number has fallen since the pandemic, where it was kind of at its height, of course, but but yeah, it's a real problem.

Karen.

The math and reading scores show some progress since the pandemic, particularly the math scores, but there are still some learning gaps statewide to overcome.

Yeah, and economically disadvantaged children have always been the hardest to educate because of those things that they bring to school that other their more wealthy kids in more wealthy districts don't have.

And there was one bright spot, I think, in the overall report cards in that English and math scores went up for economically disadvantaged students.

Now there's still way, way behind kids in other areas.

I mean, we're talking about I think, I'm looking at the numbers here, 47% of kids who are economically disadvantaged are proficient in English, and 38.3% proficient in math.

So way behind where you want those kids to be.

But there is improvement in that area, and those kids are the most expensive to educate because of all the challenges that they bring when they come to school.

So that's part of why urban school districts don't do as well on these report cards, because they have a lot of economically disadvantaged students.

So I think that's important to bring up here.

Of course, school leaders will say, hey, we've seen these improvements in a variety of categories.

This is great, but we're still not where we want to be.

I mean, you talk about chronic absenteeism statewide.

It's now down to 25%, but that's still means 1 in 4 kids are missing at least 18 days of school year.

Wow.

So these are not numbers that the district that the state is proud of.

But these are improvements.

And so that's part of what the report cards try to do is track improvement and show how things are getting better.

In Brunswick the opposite of a bully.

Take in your lunch money.

An anonymous donor has wiped out $3,500 in lunch debt for all students in the Brunswick City schools.

You.

That's a big problem.

People don't I don't think realize this.

And I I've heard some great national reporting on this issue as well.

But what what is that you're going to get your lunch in and it racks up a bill.

Sure.

So student lunchrooms.

They don't lunch ladies, they don't want and lunch people in general, they don't want kids to to go hungry.

So they will still give them the meal even if they don't have the money.

You know, maybe their parents forgot or the parents just don't have the money and so they'll still give them a meal.

But then that that number kind of tallies up and then they will eventually the bill does come due and they'll ask the families to pay.

Some it's it's not all school districts, though.

Some school districts that they have high enough levels of students in poverty.

All students do get free lunch.

It works out that the federal reimbursement, they get enough money that they can do that.

So Brunswick not a community that qualifies for that.

They're a little bit higher income, of course.

But in the school districts, you will see there's plenty of lunch that in Parma a few years ago, I believe the number was like $10,000.

So it really does rack up, you know, this this students, just again.

Yeah, parents might forget or they just don't have the money.

So.

Yeah.

And kind of cool.

And it's not it's not chump change.

3500 bucks to say, let's wipe the slate clean.

What has the, reaction been from the school district?

Oh, sure.

I think gratitude.

It's always gratitude.

Whenever we we do stories about this, hear stories about this, you know for sure gratitude from the parents as well.

It's generally just a very positive story.

But also it always raises that question, as you mentioned, why do we have this lunch debt in the first place?

Some folks would argue we really shouldn't have kids, shouldn't have to pay for lunch regardless if they're going to school, they should get a free lunch.

So that's been a debate that's been going on for a long time, actually.

In the meanwhile, if you feel as though you qualify for the reduced or free lunch, you can apply for that.

Yeah, you can go to the district's website.

They usually have the information.

All the school districts have that information available online.

So okay.

Monday on The Sound of Ideas on 89 seven, you catch the latest installment of Talking Foreign Policy, produced in collaboration with Case Western Reserve University.

Host Michael Scharf leads a conversation on the 80th anniversary of the United Nations, and whether the world body remains relevant today.

I'm Mike McIntyre.

Thank you for watching and stay safe.