Welcome to the Sound of Ideas Reporters Roundtable from Ideastream Public Media.

I'm Mike McIntyre.

Thank you so much for joining us.

If you're worried about what's got everyone talking this week, it's not the best time to step back and take a deep breath, especially if you're outdoors.

Air quality continues to be hazardous here and across the Northeast and Midwest, thanks to a plume of smoke from Canadian wildfires.

Cleveland City Council promised guardrails as it approved FLOCK surveillance cameras for six months amid vocal opposition.

AI said there was an active shooter on the University of Akron campus.

AI was wrong.

While everyone's talking about property taxes.

GOP gubernatorial candidate Vivek Ramaswamy talked this week about axing the income tax.

And would you vote for permanent Daylight Saving Time?

The U.S.

House did.

Joining me to discuss these and all of the top stories this week from Ideastream Public Media, criminal justice reporter Matt Richmond and education reporter Conor Morris.

Hey, guys.

Morning, Mike.

Howdy.

Good to see you.

Both of you.

Howdy.

You said that to me when you walk in the office.

You said, "Howdy."

And from Ideastream's Statehouse News Bur in Columbus, a woman who only springs forward and never falls back, Chief Karen Kasler.

Good morning, sunshine.

Good morning.

How are you?

Good.

Good to have you with us as well.

And you can join us by sending email to soi@ideastream.org.

Let's get ready to roundtable.

Wildfire smoke prompted an air quality advisory across Ohio yesterday, and much of the Midwest and East Coast, with Northeast Ohio reaching hazardous air quality levels.

Health officials urged everyone, but especially those with heart or lung conditions, children, older adults and pregnant women, to stay indoors.

It was surreal.

Yesterday, visibility is usually ten miles, it was about a half mile.

I could see shapes of the skyline driving into downtown, but not the skyline itself.

It felt like the fog from Widow's Bay.

I wonder if you guys noticed that yesterday too?

To me it was.

I woke up, my wife left first and she said, it smells like, you know, the whole world is burning out here.

And I'm like, it can't be that bad.

And I go outside.

And it was that bad.

Yeah.

And it was it was much worse than the last time because the smoke was, you know, down on the ground level.

So you could really feel it when you were trying to walk around.

Yeah.

When you say last time, 2023, 2023.

And we had this shroud and it was kind of eerie and gloomy looking.

But yeah, I don't remember smelling it.

Like we had more up in the atmosphere this time because of the heat dome.

I understand as I understand it, it's holding it down to ground level.

Right.

Great.

Yeah.

It was rather apocalyptic looking.

Yeah, it does have everybody talking.

And you know, I know our interns, some of our interns went out Charlotte Jons and Sonya.

But they both went out and they Sonya Suri.

And they both went out to take pictures and videos with people.

And before they even started that project, everyone was talking about it as they were coming down into the office.

So it's a talker, but it's also something that can be very dangerous.

And Conor, it's not just the smell.

Oh, it smells like smoke out here, but that smoke carries very fine particulate matter that can get into your lungs and even your bloodstream.

It presents a real hazard.

Yeah.

The air quality index in Cleveland yesterday was like a high of like 604.

That's very hazardous.

I mean, they recommend you don't really do anything outside, especially God forbid exercise or anything like that.

It's, you know, just not something you should do.

You know, as I was leaving my house yesterday, I was like, oh, go walking, get a coffee.

And I was like, oh, maybe I'm not going to maybe do that.

Yeah.

But when you say 600 over 600, usually that scale goes to 500.

So literally it sort of went off the charts.

And I think in 2023 the numbers were in the 200s and they were bad.

Now we're talking about nearly triple that.

Yes, exactly.

This is the worst the air quality has been in Cleveland within the current record keeping, which I guess goes back to 2000.

And yeah, it can trigger asthma attacks, coughing, shortness of breath, chest pain, wheezing, all sorts of breathing problems.

And you know, folks, if you experience anything like they should definitely seek medical attention right away.

Of course.

Right.

And the experts are saying basically the solution to this is pretty simple.

The first one just don't go outside.

Yeah, it's it's kind of reminiscent of some of the Covid early times in some regards where N95 masks.

So just not just like a cloth mask, that's not really going to help you out very much.

And then if you're indoors, some suggestions of using like air purifiers and things like that.

One thing I was looking at I have a window AC unit and generally it circulates the air inside your home.

So those are generally safe.

You don't need to take them out and close your windows generally.

But it was very bad.

I mean, I could even smell it inside my, my apartment, you know, yesterday.

So it wasn't great.

And it's it's down Columbus way too Karen.

Absolutely.

When you said good morning sunshine to me, I should have added smoky sunshine because that's what we're seeing.

It looks it's very weird.

And I think when you look at the national picture, Ohio is really in the middle of this purple area, which is worse than red when it comes to air quality.

So we're getting hit with a lot of it.

I think we're seeing a lot of response to that by government entities, businesses, etc.. In Cleveland, City Hall is closed and outdoor activities not happening.

Yeah, the pools are closed in Cleveland.

Outdoor movie nights in Strongsville and North Olmsted are canceled.

There's of course, the 88th First Energy All American Soapbox Derby, I had to get the full title in there, in Akron.

Those events are canceled just for today.

Looks like they're on for tomorrow at least.

But anything that's really taking place outside today is, you know, you really need to, folks will need to check, you know, the official channels to see if they're actually still on or not.

But generally maybe not.

There are some things that still are.

I know the Blazing Paddles Riverfest is scheduled for this evening and for tomorrow.

This evening, 5 to 9.

Tomorrow, 8 to 3.

It's in the Nautica Waterfront District on the Flats West Bank.

That's still going.

So there are folks that will that will, will do those things.

But do check before you go anywhere.

There could be some cancellations.

Question is, when are we going to get some relief?

Looks like tomorrow I believe was the latest I saw.

I think it was tomorrow morning-ish.

And hopefully I got a tennis match tomorrow.

So we'll see.

You okay?

Yeah.

The EPA recommends everyone stay indoors today.

The air quality alert alert remains in effect until midnight tonight.

Saturday morning, hot, stagnant air combined with wildfire smoke is here, and it's coming with winds from the northwest.

But apparently those wind directions will start to change, according to the meteorologists, later today and this evening.

And the smoke will start to clear.

Big improvements with air quality, as you mentioned tomorrow.

Also some rain that might be able to clean the air out a little bit.

So sometimes you pray for rain.

Yeah.

And this might be one of those types of times.

All right.

Other big stories.

This week, Cleveland has extended its contract with FLOCK Safety's license plate reader cameras for six months after adding new privacy protections.

City Council was divided.

I think it was 9 to 6.

Matt was the vote.

Usually you don't see that.

Usually council kind of hashes things out.

You might see a couple of stragglers.

This was this was an interesting thing.

And an east west divide.

Yeah.

This is a pretty controversial contract.

It's been going on for several months.

There was some active and activist group that has been really pushing the opposition to this, to this contract.

And, you know, the way these license plate readers work is that they they're fixed to the light poles around the city, and they take a photograph of every car that passes and then store all those photographs for 30 days at least.

And any officer without a search warrant can search for a license plate, and then they can even go further and search for, you know, a certain type of vehicle, a dent.

Yeah, a bumper sticker.

Yep.

Can enter like some of those sort of characteristics to find, you know, every camera that vehicle is passed within a certain amount of time.

And so it really is a very powerful tool for, for officers looking for, you know, suspects.

You can see why that would work if you have somebody that committed a crime and you can follow the path of where they were and say, okay, now we have an idea of the the vehicle that was involved or where it might have gone, but they're also then was this concern and it was we talked about this last week to where it might have been used in either nefarious ways or in ways that maybe the city doesn't want it to be used to.

Look at whether somebody was checking their immigration status and where they might be, or somebody who might have gone in some places, might have gone out of state for an abortion when it's illegal in that state, those types of things, and they worry about that.

What did the city have to say in terms of the way it's going to try to put guardrails on that?

Yeah, that was one of the interesting things.

I mean, they first they said that they're going to reduce the extension from a year to six months and put out an RFP, a request for proposals for new contract with maybe FLOCK, maybe another company that runs these, these license plate readers.

And then, you know, one of the really powerful things about this technology and this company is that because they have contracts with so many cities and so many law enforcement agencies, you know, Cleveland police officer who's looking for a car isn't just limited to where that vehicle travel within Cleveland.

They enter it and can get, you know, a nationwide search for, for a vehicle.

And that here where there are so many suburbs and where, you know, people cross across borders all of the time, it really, you know, makes it really is a helpful tool.

And that's what you heard from law enforcement over and over again during these hearings.

It's become essential to the work that they do.

But because it's open that way, where anybody who has a contract with a FLOCK can search, anybody will search pretty much anybody's cameras.

That means that and that is raised concerns that, for instance, immigration authorities, when they're looking for a vehicle, they enter a license plate and it searches everybody.

And, you know, Cleveland has said that we're not helping immigration, we're not helping federal immigration enforcement.

But just because of the way FLOCK is set up in immigration was able to do that.

So so they said that they're going to close off and it's written into the law.

The law enforcement did this a while ago, but now it's written into law where they're closing off searches to outside law enforcement agencies.

So nobody when they're looking for a car can check Cleveland's cameras.

Okay.

That, you know, solves the problem of law enforcement or people who are or law enforcement is looking for somebody traveling out of state for reproductive health care.

But then, you know, that really limits the effectiveness of this, this tool now and now, Garfield Heights, if a law if law enforcement, Garfield Heights is looking for a car, it's not it wasn't clearly spelled out how they would see if that car crossed into Cleveland.

I assume they would have to call Cleveland Police, and Cleveland Police would enter that, that license plate for them.

But that wasn't really spelled out during all the hearings that I heard.

And I mentioned there was an east west divide, a lot of the East Side council members voted yes for this, except for one, a lot of the West Side council members voted no for it.

No, the opposite way.

I'm sorry.

That is the way it was.

And so the the thing about the East Side council members is they say their neighborhood in their constituents are worried about safety.

And this is something that would enhance safety.

Yeah.

It was a really a passionate debate at the at the last it was a committee of the whole meeting this week.

And there was, you know, the East Side council members said that, that their neighborhoods are not going to, you know, they don't want their neighborhoods to just kind of turn away this tool that the chief of police, the public safety director, every police officer who's come in to council said, we need this.

We use this in every violent crime investigation.

This is an essential tool for us now.

And, you know, their view was that these council members view was like, why would we turn this away?

We have a lot of violent crime in our neighborhoods.

And then, you know, you heard from the West Side Council members that this the sort of the privacy implications and the and the ways that this tool can be used.

There are bigger issues than its than its usefulness.

And, you know, Cleveland police solved crimes before this, this tool arrived.

And if we limit the use of these, if the city were to limit the use of this tool, they would continue to use other investigative tools to solve crimes.

So, you know, it was a it was many hours of that debate.

Tom sends an email and he's on the side of no to the FLOCK cameras.

He says the initial primary function of FLOCK is law enforcement.

But inevitably, when combined with AI and data center capacity, these cameras could be used to track our every public behavior for the purpose of adjustment of our social credit score, a system which already exists in China, which determines what liberties each individual can enjoy.

That's Tom's concern shared, I'm sure, by some of those who are opposed to these.

And some of those who are opposed to these in Ashland County took action.

They vandalized the FLOCK cameras at multiple locations there.

Tell me a little bit about that.

Yeah, there were some cameras were destroyed that were because because these are just sort of sitting on labels.

They're not that hard to find if you are looking for you.

Yeah.

They're sitting on poles.

They usually have a one that I've seen has a little like solar panel and underneath it to power it.

And this is actually you've seen on online there is a group kind of a national group that is, say, campaigning or is pushing the idea of when you see them, take them out, destroying them, just sort of in response to the concerns about the surveillance state that these cameras kind of are can be a part of.

Yeah.

If they're kind of allowed to proliferate without.

I know that the police chief there said, listen, you're just destroying stuff that you paid for.

This is these are paid for by taxpayers.

They're needed by us as police and by destroying them, you're essentially just adding to your tab.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It doesn't seem to be solving the issue of whether or not these things are going to be here.

And there are there was several thousand, Cleveland.com found that in Cuyahoga County, there are several thousand of these cameras set up already.

So there's no turning it back that way, I guess.

Right.

And again, this was in Ashland County that happened, but certainly something to keep an eye on.

Cleveland City Council approved a three month moratorium on new standalone data centers while the city updates its zoning rules and policies.

Originally, Matt, I thought when you did the reporting, it was a year long moratorium proposed by a councilman Council Why is it shrunk down to three months?

Well, there was some concern as it kind of made its way through, through council, that this would be sort of akin to putting up a sign that they're closed for a business that if you that if you wait a year, these companies that are trying to build them are going to go somewhere else and build them elsewhere.

And maybe that's the idea for some people.

Well, yes.

And but I think particularly Council President Blaine Griffin said he doesn't want to send that message at this point or he didn't want council sending that message.

So what are they going to do in this three months?

they're going to look at, you know, zoning rules.

So, so regulations for where exactly they can be put because there's no, you know, with a zoning, there are types of uses that are, you know, there's heavy industrial, there's commercial there.

There's not really a category that is that these fit into.

Quite.

Right.

So, so what councilmember said is that we want to figure out exactly how to set up zoning rules that will apply well to these kind of like, you know, these are the really big data centers that are being built to kind of meet the needs of artificial intelligence.

That's a pretty new thing.

And so and then, you know, they're going to have to look closely at, for instance, the, the, the tax incentives that the city offers to, to new, new industries coming to Cleveland.

Like, did those apply well to this when it sees giant companies with closer to trillions of dollars of value, are we going to be giving them tax breaks on the materials that they purchased to build these things, like things like that will have to be considered?

Yeah.

And then, you know, there was kind of plans that came out or a proposal to build one in the Slavic Village neighborhood.

And, you know, I think a lot of people said, well, this is close to where people live.

Do we really want this, this close to where people live?

So that was what led to the pumping of the brakes, to really take a close look at how these things are going to be handled.

It doesn't exis ... It doesn't affect existing data centers.

So there are those that are built now and won't be impacted by this.

I thought it was interesting too, that Councilmember Tanmay Shah said the city can't get anything done in three months and you're going to tell me in three months we're going to figure out how to regulate these things?

Yeah, yeah, that was an interesting point.

And it's summ So we might not see council again until September.

And so, you know, the the idea with I think part of it was just a message to send a message that we're, we're going to try to get this done as quickly as possible.

And new companies out there I in Cleveland, we're not, don't don't give us up.

Don't give up on us yet.

Right.

And you know, there's a possibility of extending it for, for another three months or another month or if there's a Kalshi, where you bet on this, I'm saying north of three months, it's going to be longer than three months, for sure.

Cleveland is moving ahead with plans for a designated outdoor refreshment area.

It's called a DORA.

This one actually is indoors in Playhouse Square.

It's outdoors only for big events.

A DORA allows people to buy alcohol from participating businesses, carry them within a designated area.

You know, you take your beer out from the bar and walk to the next place or whatever.

You can see that in the French Quarter in New Orleans, a whole lot of places.

One council member, though, said all of downtown should be a DORA, that it shouldn't just be the Playhouse Square area.

Tell me a little bit about that.

And we've just mentioned his name when it came to data centers as well.

Charles Slife is in the news this week.

Yeah, yeah, he said the city should, you know, eventually expand the concept to all downtown.

So the idea is like East Fourth Street, Progressive Field, Playhouse Square, kind of a connected area.

So you can take your drink, you know, all the way through.

And I mean, Cleveland's doing anything it can to bring people back downtown of course.

So that's that's part of this too.

Right now, the DORA for Playhouse Square would be for events like Tri-C JazzFest, the Border Light Festival, future events, Holiday Market on the Plaza, those types of things.

The idea of just having open carry of alcohol from East Fourth Street to Playhouse Square and around, is that it would just become an entire entertainment district.

The concern, I think, from law enforcement officials is if you have, it might promote even more alcohol use.

You might have even more of the issues that you deal with from, from you should be dealt with it in a bar.

Now you're dealing with it on the corner.

Disorderly conduct and things of that nature.

You know, fights, things like that.

Of course, I don't know that there's been any real data in Ohio on, like, the results of crime, you know, increasing or decreasing because of DORAs.

The one the only main one that I'm familiar with is the one in Athens.

OU, Oh yeah.

And it's it generally seemed to be working out fine for the city there.

Yeah.

The cups have to be a specific kind of cup to, to take with you as you, as you leave out into the street.

So there's some accountability regulation issue there.

So could I get a Hot Nut from Tony's and put it in a cup and walk around with it?

That's a good question, Mike.

I mean, you probably just want to just shoot it back immediately.

And I did not go OU.

I just happened to know a lot about it.

Well, I was going to bring out, you know, I, I listened to the, to the debate over this in a council and one of the reasons why they want to do this is because Cleveland gets six of these outdoor refreshment area, sort of I don't know what you call them, but you know, they can have six of them.

And so they already have one on East Fourth.

And then there'd be this one in Playhouse Square.

And then presumably, you know, when the when the lakefront is ready, they're going to want one there and then the riverfront.

And I mean, that would be for if you're doing these small scattered ones just in downtown.

And so some council members said, well, we're going to probably want one in University Circle.

And what about, you know, Shaker Square?

And so they there was concern that, you know, they were all going to get eaten up by downtown.

And nothing gets council members more on, on the edge of their seat, then the idea that downtown's getting everything.

So this is one of those situations.

Again, interesting point.

Ohio is spending $1 million to recruit and train poll workers in an effort to avoid staffing shortages on Election Day in November.

Karen, this happened in the past where they've been short staffed and that ends up being longer lines, etc.

so what will they do now to try to goose up the numbers?

Well, I just wanted to add one thing really quick about the DORAs.

Oh sure.

There was a study that was done in 2021, and in Downtown Columbus reports that 96% of the 25 DORA communities at the time did not report any increase in crime.

So there has been some attempt to try to track what happens with those DORAs.

And so far, apparently they've gone really well.

So let's turn back to what you actually asked me about, which, of course, is the million dollar grant for poll workers.

And this is something that's been happening for a long time with poll worker There's been a shortage of them as we go into big elections like this one, Secretary of State Frank LaRose has issued a directive saying that he wants 15% more poll workers than are technically needed.

And this million dollar grant is for all 88 counties, a minimum of $1,000.

Counties have to apply for it, and the money can be used for things like it can be used for.

It can't be used for payroll, wages or bonuses for poll workers, which is one of the things that has been cited as a reason why there's been difficulty in recruiting poll workers, because they just don't get paid very much.

So the million dollars comes from where?

The state?

Yeah.

And again, this is out potentially to all 88 counties here.

The money can be used to recruit through advertising.

Also facility rentals for training activities and any costs relating to hiring trainers and the printing and reproduction of training materials.

So it's really targeted toward training as opposed to the actual work that poll workers are doing.

But elections officials say, you know, anything helps at this point.

They're really struggling to get poll workers, not only because of the pay, but there's also a real concern from some people that their safety concerns here, and they're worried that their safety could be in danger if they're working the polls because of so many reports of things that could potentially happen.

And we've been reassured over and over that nothing, nothing like that's going to happen.

These are secure places.

But poll workers are worried.

Yeah.

And you need not just the the number of poll workers to staff it, but they're talking about a reserve pool of poll workers 30% more than you need.

Part of the reason for that is their last minute cancellations, illnesses, as you mentioned, somebody who might somehow become afraid of what might happen at the polls.

So you need to have backups.

Yeah.

And you're talking about a population that in many cases is older.

And so they're their availability may change between the time they get trained and when they actually are there.

So 40,000 extra workers are being the goal is to have them trained on top of what's already there.

So this is it's a tall order, but poll workers come through.

I mean, it's amazing how every single year we get poll workers from both parties who show up and do the do a great job and needle me every time I go to vote.

Absolutely.

Vivek Ramaswamy, the Republican candidate for governor, said he plans to eliminate the state's capital gains tax.

And then that's part of a larger goal to get rid of the whole state income tax.

A booming economy will cover any losses experienced by the state, he said.

And Karen, we have been talking about property taxes forever.

And in fact, I'll mention it in a moment.

But we're going to be talking about it at a community tour on Monday evening at the Cleveland Metroparks Zoo.

Property taxes.

What he's talking about, though, is income taxes.

We have talked about property taxes a little bit, and he was actually asked at this event about property taxes and his idea to roll back property taxes to pre-pandemic levels.

And he was asked, how is he going to do that while still talking about having better schools?

And his answer was a little bit confusing because he talked about in the pre-pandemic times we had better school performance, and so we can somehow roll back property taxes to that.

I'm not sure how all of that works, but he's been a lot more clear, I think, on eliminating the state income tax and eliminating the capital gains tax.

Capital gains taxes kind of rolled into income tax.

So if you eliminate the income tax, I believe you eliminate the capital gains tax as well.

But you talked about both of those things.

And his critics have pointed out that especially the capital gains tax repeal would benefit the wealthiest Ohioans, like 55% of the benefit from rolling back and getting rid of the capital gains tax would benefit people making over $1 million a year in Ohio.

And that group, of course, includes Ramaswamy.

Now, he made this while he was getting an endorsement from the Ohio Chamber of Commerce in the election.

Not a surprise.

I don't think the chamber has ever endorsed anyone but a Republican.

Well, and when it comes, they have endorsed Democrats in other offices.

But when it comes to the office of governor, the first time they endorsed anyone for governor was John Kasich during his first run in 2010.

And since then they have not endorsed anybody but a Republican.

So they endorsed Kasich twice.

They endorsed DeWine twice, and now they're endorsing Ramaswamy.

All right.

I mentioned just a moment ago that we're going to be talking about property taxes, and we're going to be doing that at 6:00 Monday night.

You can join us for the next stop of the Sound of Ideas Community Tour.

It's at the Cleveland Metroparks Zoo, and we'll be talking about all the property taxes that are on people's minds.

A panel of folks with various perspectives, some who want to see large scale reform, others who want to eliminate property taxes, and those who say property taxes are essential to fund parks, schools, libraries and other vital public services.

You are invited.

So just go to ideastrea slash community tour to let us know you're coming.

We hope to have a big crowd there and a great, robust conversation We have many more stories to talk about on this week's Reporters Roundtable, including permanent Daylight Saving Time.

What is your vote?

The U.S.

House voted - Yeah, we should have that.

What do you think?

We're going to talk about that in the next segment as well.

Now here's Stephanie Haney with a look at next week on The Sound of Ideas.

Hi there Mike.

Here's what we have coming up next week on The Sound of Ideas.

Monday kicks off our Ideastream Explores Property Taxes week long series where the entire newsroom is covering property taxes.

So we'll preview that for you to start the show.

We'll also talk with Ohio State Representative Dave Thomas about what's happening in the state legislature when it comes to property taxes, and we'll hear from Ideastream's Kabir Bhatia about the leadership shakeup at the Cleveland International Film Festival.

On Tuesday, we turn our attention to townships and specifically how property taxes work there in our state.

We'll also hear from the author of a book called, "Something in the Woods Loves You."

This is a book about mental health and nature.

On Wednesday, we'll bring you our panel conversation on the future of property taxes from our community tour.

This is a live event happening at the Cleveland Metroparks Zoo on Monday night at 6 p.m.. We'd love to have you there live.

If you can't join us, you can catch that conversation on Wednesday on The Sound of Ideas.

We'll wrap things up on Thursday looking at the school funding issue when it comes to property taxes.

And we'll bring you our latest installment of The Menu.

We'll be looking at the 20th anniversary of Constantino's Market operating downtown and also the closure of downtown grocery store Heinen's, which is happening at the end of July, and what that means for people in the Downtown Cleveland area.

If you have suggestions for something you'd like us to cover, we would love an email at soi@ideastream.

Back to you in the studio, Mike.

Thank you.

Stephanie.

And that's going to be the Sound of Ideas community tour, the stories that you talked about as well on The Sound of Ideas, but also throughout the week in our Morning Edition and All Things Considered, and throughout the day, we're covering the issue of property taxes.

You can also go to our website and you'll find all kinds of coverage there as well.

And you are back now with the Sound of Ideas Reporters Roundtable with Matt Richmond and Conor Morris and of course, Karen Kasler as well.

And a reminder, we'd love you to take the Sound of Ideas community to ... I'm sorry.

We would love you to come to that, but we'd love you to take the quiz, the Ideastream News Quiz, and you can find that right now on our website ideastream.org.

A group of Northeast Ohio universities and regional partners will get up to $160 million from the National Science Foundation to help turn research into new products, businesses and manufacturing jobs.

The funding aims to support industries like aerospace, health care and defense.

And Conor, when we were having this story by Steve Litt, who covers economic development and art and architecture for us, you know, he was telling us as he talked to the leaders in the community, including Baiju Shah from Greater Cleveland Partnership, they were just saying this is a huge deal, up to $160 million.

Tell me what's going to do.

Yes.

This is from the National Science Foundation's Regional Innovation Engine grant.

So again, following a $1 million planning grant from that same organization in 2023 to kind of organize this in the first spot, you know, and so, yeah, I mean, so Case Western Reserve University is going to lead this coalition that's known as NEO SMART, which includes more than 70 universities, businesses and organizations across Northeast Ohio.

And that's short for Northeast Ohio Strengthening Manufacturing for American Resilience through Technology.

That is a long.

Yeah, that's a pretty good for sure.

Yeah.

So of course, this is a bunch of regional universities, the University of Akron, Case Western Reserve University, Lorain County Community College, the universities in Cleveland and Kent.

And so it's supposed to create or retain 20,000 jobs, train 12,000 workers for in-demand jobs as well, strengthen domestic supply chains is their pitch.

So again as you mentioned automotive aerospace defense.

There's going to be some AI machine learning as well to increase corporate research and development I guess to and then support a thousand ventures and provide more than 250 seed investments.

So, I mean, it's a huge deal.

These things we see these things happen sometimes in Northeast Ohio, and folks often are really there's a lot of people working behind the scenes for these things to happen because, I mean, we're we're a Rust Belt community.

I mean, we used to have this massive manufacturing base, and a lot of folks are really working hard to try to set us up for what's next.

And this has been happening in this region for a long time, advanced manufacturing.

But what's interesting is that you've got all the universities, that's this brain power, and you've got all this capacity to manufacture things.

And what they're looking for now is to grease that pipeline, so that when someone comes up with a great idea at case or at Akron with polymers or whatever it might be, it then gets that seed money to become something to be built, which employs people to build it.

Yeah.

And honestly, one of the biggest things that we hear about, you know, when city, Cleveland City Council or other folks have these conversations is that there's a lack of skilled workers sometimes for some of these ventures.

And so this is really looking at targeting that too.

Okay.

Ohio can't enforce its new hemp restrictions against statewide beverage manufacturers, while a lawsuit challenging Senate Bill 56 plays out.

And that's for specific manufacturers who have sued the state.

According to a federal judge, the law likely gives businesses an unfair advantage by making it harder for out-of-state companies to compete in Ohio.

And, Karen, we talked a little bit about this before, but now the judge has extended this.

Tell us more about his decision to block this and where it stands with hemp regulation in Ohio.

Well, this is for ten businesses, ten specific businesses that challenge the law.

This is Senate Bill 56 that made changes on THC beverages as well as the state's legalized recreational marijuana program.

But they specifically said that this was making it harder, like you said, for out-of-state companies to compete in Ohio.

And so this specifically relates to these ten companies that will be allowed to sell these products, these THC beverages, until a later time period.

That includes Saucy Brew Works in Ohio City.

But other companies, other places don't have that.

It's only these ten.

So that's that's an important distinction here.

And will we see then through these court cases.

They are affecting just the ones who are plaintiffs in it.

But you would think that the outcome of those would then possibly apply to whether the state can, can continue with its, its restrictive law.

Yeah.

And I think that's the argument that's being made here.

And my statehouse News Bureau colleague, Sarah Donaldson is going to be following up on this today, talking to some folks about this whole patchwork that now exists here, where you've got these ten companies that can sell, or at least the state can't take action against them from, for selling.

And then these other companies that can't.

So that's been I think the argument all along is do these do these rulings apply to all of the different places that are selling these THC beverages?

Now, the state has been saying that this is about public health, that really they want to regulate these THC beverages like they regulate marijuana in Ohio, marijuana has to be produced in Ohio.

It's tested in Ohio, whereas these THC beverages can come in from out of state.

And the state says that's just not safe.

Meanwhile, these companies, these breweries are saying it's these are really popular.

People are enjoying these these seltzers, these THC infused beverages.

And we should be able to keep selling them.

And it's not just the beverages are coming in from out of state.

It's the ingredients that are coming in.

It's the or those types of things.

And they may be manufactured here, but the ingredients coming from out of state then presents a problem with this particular law.

Really interesting to follow, and I'm certain that we'll be doing that.

According to a state review, Cuyahoga County Jail staff members failed to start CPR immediately after discovering Jennifer Wade unresponsive in her cell before she died in 2025.

Inspectors are ordering the county to improve its emergency response, and this was an investigation map that at first they said things were done properly.

It was reopened after the Marshall Project did stories that showed video in which this person was essentially ignored while she was in duress.

Yeah, that video did not initially go to a state investigators.

And so that's why they they reopened it.

And then, you know, yes, she was left unresponsive in herself for hours.

And then it took another 20 minutes after, you know, a medical emergency was sort of called for a nurse to arrive and to start CPR.

And at that point, apparently her body had already become cold to the touch.

So now that they've made that determination, where do we stand?

Does it does the county take that information and say we've we've changed our procedures.

That's a that's a very good, good question there.

It wasn't entirely clear to me.

I think, you know, one of the big issues is will corrections officers be required to start CPR immediately in a in a circumstance like, like this and what they found or what kind of this investigation showed is that only three of the of the 12 corrections officers who responded were trained on a CPR initially.

There were then, you know, they got it up the number up to 12.

But the policy is that, you know, you call for medical assistance and there are nurses from MetroHealth who are in the jail.

You call for medical assistance and then wait for them to to arrive.

And so, you know, the state said, according to the Marshall Project, reporting, that once a scene is secured, whoever is properly trained should be giving the medical training.

So it'll be interesting to see what where the county comes down on this and also where CPR is required, because I thought at one point it was you have to give immediate CPR, but then there was a directive or message from the county that says only off of property outside of the property, which made no sense to me.

But yeah, I don't understand exactly what their procedures are, and I suppose that this ruling will perhaps give us a little closer look at what kind of reform there might be.

Yeah, yeah.

And I mean, I think, you know, from the from the county's perspective so far from the union's perspective is that that's why MetroHealth is in the jail.

They're there to come and provide the medical care, not our corrections officers.

All right.

And a development in another case involving another death of an inmate at Cuyahoga County Jail.

Three MetroHealth police officers and a county sheriff's deputy will not face criminal charges in the May 2025 death of 39 year old Tasha Grant.

So what happened in that circumstance, and why are they not going to face any kind of criminal sanction as a result?

Yeah, this was a really awful case.

A woman was brought to MetroHealth, was under some pretty serious stress and was fighting with with the medical staff and with officers who were there.

Eventually they got her up on the bed and restrained her by, by cuffing her.

And she was a double amputee.

So, so had didn't have any legs.

And while she was restrained, she could be heard on the video saying repeatedly that she couldn't breathe.

They once they got her back up on the bed, restrained her.

They, they administered some sort of medication, give or shot, and that sedated her.

And then she went into cardiac arrest after that and died.

But there are no charges on that.

There wasn't criminal culpability.

The family is still pursuing a civil lawsuit in regards to her death.

Yeah.

There's a I'm not sure if it's in federal court or in county court, but yeah, there is a civil case against both the the officers who were there and the MetroHealth medical staff and MetroHealth issued a statement in which they they said they're grateful for the grand jury's thorough review, but also noted that it doesn't diminish the profound loss at the center of the case.

They said Tasha Grant was well known to many members of the Metro family, and meant a great deal those who cared for her.

So that's their statement as well.

All right.

Planned Parenthood of Southwest Ohio is suing the Ohio Department of Health, saying it has delayed approving the ownership transfer of a Dayton abortion clinic.

And, Karen, how long has this been ongoing and is it unusual to see somethi like this prompt a lawsuit?

Yeah, this has been going on for quite a while.

And what the allegation here is from Planned Parenthood of Southwest Ohio is that the Department of Health is dragging its feet on processing some paperwork here, and so they're having to use the license of the previous owner of the clinic.

He's having to keep his license active.

Doctor Martin Haskell is his name.

And they're saying that, you know, frankly, this is just odd, is not doing their job.

And so they've gone on with this for a while.

I think the first lawsuit was filed in 2021.

And so now they're saying it's time to resolve this and move forward.

And they want not only to do their job as they ordered it and process the paperwork, but they also want owed to be held in contempt of court for making them wait this long.

They've said they had.

The previous owner has to maintain his licensure so that it can stay open, that there's all kinds of hardship that's caused by this.

Yeah.

And a lot of abortion providers will say this is the kind of thing that they faced.

As Ohio continues to kind of chip away at abortion rights in Ohio, which has been happening over the years.

Of course, we had in 2023 this constitutional amendment that voters approved that guaranteed access to reproductive treatment as well as abortion.

And so that's another claim.

I think that's part of this, is that this is really going against that constitutional amendment and unconstitutionally limiting people's access, because I think this is the only clinic that's in the Dayton area.

Okay.

I want to read an email from Sean in its entirety, and then I want to go back and hopefully set the record straight.

Sean says: "Was it really necessary for the host to make a comment about poll workers needling him, to make it sound like we are annoying just for doing our jobs?

I guarantee he's one of the men who gets all huffy puffy because we bother them to verify their name and address, which is required by law.

So excuse us for doing our job.

Maybe you should spend a whole day, 5 a.m.

to 8 p.m.

or later, dealing with nasty, aggressive people like himself while ensuring our elections are properly run."

Sean, let me say what I meant by "needling" is these are my neighbors and they needle me like, "Hey, Mr.

Sound of Ideas, where's your microphone?"

You know, it's like that kind of thing.

When I say needling, I mean literally they're just teasing and friends.

And it's not a situation where I'm huffy and puffy.

I respect the poll workers.

I'm glad they do what they do.

And I vote in person at the same place, I think for the last 30 years or so.

So that's what I meant by that.

I also love the bake sale that's outside in the front with the with the PTA.

All right.

Thanks, Sean.

Appreciate that.

Hope we cleared that up for you.

Plans for a drop in center for homeless youth in Ohio City are still on hold.

An appeals court sent a lawsuit filed by neighbors back to a lower court for further review, keeping the project in legal limbo.

And, Conor, there's all kinds of different legal machinations here, but basically a drop in center for homeless youth.

It's necessary.

Neighbors even agree they just don't want it in their neighborhood.

So they filed suit.

So where do we stand with that now?

Yeah.

So this drop in center, it's meant to provide support services, food, clothing, showers, a place to kind of hang out and rest from the respite from the street, but also help getting a job, finding housing.

You know, ultimately, the this is the hope that this is a window out of homelessness.

And so this has been planned since 2022.

And it's been trapped in legal limbo basically ever since.

Neighbors filed a lawsuit saying the city should not have given this these offices.

This is Lutheran Metropolitan Ministry as a nonprofit.

They've got an office space in on Franklin Avenue in Ohio City.

It's a residential neighborhood.

They've had these offices there for a long time, but they want to turn it into the drop in center.

And the variances from city zoning code that they got are basically at the very core of this issue.

The neighbors say this is going to potentially cause issues with crime and trash and noise in our residential neighborhood.

We don't want that.

Folks are accusing these neighbors, a couple of them of who have filed this lawsuit of NIMBYism, essentially.

So not in my backyard ism.

And they say, folks say, hey, you know, we there are actually other neighbors that say we do support this.

So it's been a really contentious issue for sure.

The appeals court, it's complicated.

But they basically said the judge did not use the proper legal kind of review for part of his decision, so we're going to send it back to him.

He'd already said these variances shouldn't have been granted, so it just stretches it out a little bit for sure.

All right.

We're going to talk about Vinton County.

16 children were found living in deplorable conditions in a tiny home in the village of Hamden, near Wellston, Vinton County.

Vinton County is in Southeast Ohio The state is giving a local child welfare agency $1 million to help cover their care and medical needs as an investigation continues.

And Karen, this is one of those things everybody across the state have been talking about.

How did the state determine that the agency needed this million dollars of funding for this tragedy?

Well, this has become a national story because it's just I mean, 16 kids rescued from a home that authorities called deplorable and filthy.

It's just it's a terrible situation for those kids.

Their parents and grandparents have now been charged with child endangerment.

But the million dollars comes from a panel of lawmakers called the State Controlling Board, which approves emergency spending that comes outside of the budget, and the children's services entity that serves that area had come to the state, saying that their caseload doubled when they took custody of these kids.

And so they just did not have the money to help these children because some of them were hospitalized.

Two of them were near death when they were taken from this house.

So there's a lot of extra money needed to try to figure out how to help these kids medically, as well as to find out what's going to happen to them next.

And I think it really does show how close to the edge a lot of counties do operate, especially when you start talking about Appalachian Ohio counties, where there's just not a whole lot of money and something like this happens, and it really can just burn through all the money that the county has.

Those children range from 17 months to 18 years old.

Yeah.

And one other thing here, too.

The grandfather, who had been charged with child endangerment, was actually released on a bond from jail because he needed medical treatment.

And the county said if he stayed in jail, the county would have to pay for that.

And there wasn't the money to do that.

So it really does show that there some of these counties are in difficult situations and still facing terrible situations like this one.

Okay.

An artificial intelligence powered crime app falsely reported an active shooter at the University of Akron on Tuesday.

Akron police confirmed there was no shooting.

Thankfully, the false report didn't induce panic, and I've heard this happening more and more.

Matt, where somebody might get from this this in this CrimeRadar app and then put it out on their social media.

And then everyone's talking about an active shooter in a place where nothing happens.

What's going on?

Yeah.

So there are places.

So, you know, the police kind of you can get calls over the air.

You can hear officers being sent to calls to respond to calls for a service.

And there's something online called broadcast where you can get a whole bunch of different departments, radio signals and hear what's going on.

And so this app is kind of sifting through that and just pulling information off of those feeds and sending it out, saying officers are going to this or that, call for service without, you know, it's artificial intelligence.

So it's not real good.

It interpret interpreting whether this is a confirmed shooting, whether you know, what they're responding to actually happened and sound of important.

Yeah.

And so you know this is heartening as a because it's kind of what the reporters do very often.

Right is take what's going on over the over the air to officers and checking it out if it actually happened.

Yeah, we make a phone call or go to the place instead of just say, hey, this just happened.

And so that's been happening and it's been in a number of places in Ohio and I think across the country as well.

In the University of Akron, the police said that it didn't induce people didn't call in and say they'd heard it and there was some problems.

But you can imagine the kind of panic something like that might induce.

Yeah, I think back in back in late 2025, it was, but there were some in Texas where it was a potential school shooting like a, like an elementary or high school shooting.

And that got a much larger response closer to, to the panic.

And, you know, one of the concerns that an app like this is going to lead to is that it's been going on for years.

The police have considered encrypting their their communications.

So, you know, just members of the public can't listen in.

And so there is some concern that these sorts of incidents are going to lead to kind of the loss of access to this scanner traffic.

And until that happens, what police are advising is what you just said reporters do, which is don't just throw stuff out there, be cautious about the source of the material and be mindful that the information may not be correct.

It could be inaccurate.

So let's just not amplify right.

And and if you wait around for for a few minutes, you'll hear that call get closed by an officer.

When they say, you know, I checked it out, it was false alarm, right?

Exactly.

Ohio welcomed more than 200 million visitors in 2025 who spent nearly $60 billion across the state more than the year before.

Karen, it's good to see progress, and I've seen it every year since the pandemic.

How do we compare this year to previous years?

A pretty good one.

Not bad, up about a little over 1% from last year, but up a significant amount from, say, 2019, 245 million visitors.

That includes people coming in from out of state as well as people in state going to do tourism stuff in Ohio.

And so the tourism department, the Ohio Tourism Department says, hey, this is this is a great thing.

This is generating a lot of economic activity, $58 billion generated in terms of tourism last year alone.

And now they said they've got the marketing not only to just go after markets that people can drive to Ohio from, but also with new flights coming out of Cleveland and Columbus and other places, those open up new markets to people so that Ohio tourism can tell people in those markets that have new flights to Ohio that, hey, Ohio is someplace to to consider coming to visit.

All right.

And it might be real sunny late at night in Ohio if we have daylight saving time become permanent.

The US House of Representatives voted to make that so the bill now heads to the Senate.

President Trump said he'd sign it.

Still much debate about whether permanent daylight saving time, permanent standard time or the current method of switching clocks in the spring and fall is the right move.

And we have Dave sending in an email saying there is no reason to make it permanent.

Everybody really wants this change.

The time that people start work, that would have the same effect.

And noon could still be when the sun is at its highest, like Arizona does.

He goes on and on about that.

And there's a number of other thoughts I wanted to find out from you all.

Do you have a vote?

So here's the question.

If you have permanent daylight saving time, it's going to be dark in the morning when kids go to school and when you get up and go places, if you have permanent standard time, it's going to be a little darker earlier if you wanted to get in some activity after work.

Matt.

Yeah, I have no interest in trying to get my six year old up and out the door into school when it's still dark.

So in the morning, standard time.

What about what about fall back and spring forward?

Would you rather just have one time?

I don't know, I like the change.

I think it's exciting to get the late, late in the summer.

It feels like such a rip off to to lose an hour basically, you know, because of this stuff.

So I'm in favor of whatever does not cause us to constantly be changing back and forth.

Okay, so one or the other.

Yeah.

All right.

Karen?

I love falling back.

So let's just do that all the time.

I thought you were only I love falling over.

All right.

Fair enough.

I thought you were always a spring forward person.

But that's okay.

That is all for today, and we'd love to hear your thoughts too.

I know there's some folks sending me emails.

We can't get to those today, but I look at all of them.

So I'd love to hear your thought on Daylight Saving Time.

And that's all for today.

My thanks to Karen, Matt and Conor.

Appreciate all of you.

Oh, and a real quick if I could.

Happy birthday to my mother, who I believe is listening in.

Yes.

Happy birthday to mom.

Awesome.

All right, look out Monday on our website for insights from our art and architecture critic Steve Litt on the proposa from the arts collective MSCHF to erect 250 bronze and granite sculptures representing everyday Americans on prime lakefront real estate in Cleveland.

It's privately funded, expected to cost tens of millions of dollars and is now before the Cleveland Planning Commission.

Steve has a lot of questions.

You can look for that Monday on Ideastream.

And Monday marks the beginning of our newsroom wide project.

Ideastream Explores: Property Taxes.

A full week of content focused on property taxes.

We have been attending listening sessions at libraries in the region to hear what's on your mind.

As the midterms near and many of you said property taxes, we listened.

On The Sound of Ideas Monday at nine, Stephanie Haynie will talk with State Representative Dave Thomas, who's been advocating for property tax reform at the statehouse.

And remember, at six Monday evening, join us for the next stop of the Sound of Ideas community tour at the Cleveland Metroparks Zoo.

We'll be talking with a panel of individuals who have various opinions on how to address property taxes and fund vital public services.

Go to ideastream.org slash communitytour to register.

If you missed any part of today' show, you can hear a rebroadcast tonight at 89.7 WKSU.

Find it on any podcast app and on the Ideastream Public Media YouTube page, and you can watch the television version tonight at five on WVIZ/PBS.

I'm Mike McIntyre.

Thanks for listening and watching.

Stay Safe.

And our closing song today.

“Daylight Saving” by Iration (music)