(bright contemplative music) - Governor DeWine says he will sign a bill that makes it easier for districts to arm teachers and school personnel for safety.

Ford looks to go big into electric vehicle production, announcing a major investment that will bring thousands of jobs to Northeast Ohio.

And a federal court steps into end Ohio's map making mess, at least for now.

"Ideas" is next.

Hello, and welcome to "Ideas."

I'm Rick Jackson, in this week for Mike McIntyre.

Thank you for joining us.

As President Biden calls on Congress to act in the aftermath of another deadly school shooting, Ohio lawmakers fast track a bill to make it easier for districts to arm teachers and school staff.

Ford makes good on a promise and announces a massive investment in Northeast Ohio with a new electric vehicle production line.

Ohio will hold a primary vote on August 2nd for the state House and state Senate district races.

A federal court stepped in over the holiday weekend and implemented a previously rejected map.

And sports betters will soon place their bets in Ohio, but the system won't be ready in time for upcoming college and pro football seasons.

We'll talk about all of that and the rest of the week's news on the reporters' round table.

Joining me this week from Ideastream Public Media, multiple media producer, Gabriel Kramer and managing producer for health Marlene Harris-Taylor.

In Columbus, Ohio Public Radio state house news bureau chief Karen Kasler joins us.

So let's get started.

The Republican-dominated state legislature has passed a bill lowering training requirements for arming school personnel, including classroom teachers.

The bill reduces the threshold from the current 700 hours of training to just 24.

Karen, House Bill 99 was actually introduced last fall originally in response to an Ohio Supreme Court ruling that supported the 700 hours of training needed to arm school personnel.

Why the rush to get this through now?

- Well, I think the clarification of that Supreme Court ruling was important to people who want to potentially either go armed in school or districts that wanna consider that option.

And so having that clarification was something that was part of the reason for this, and, again, this bill came from Representative Thomas Hall, a Republican from Middletown near Cincinnati.

And the connection here is that his father was a school resource officer back in 2016 when there was a shooting at a Madison local junior-senior high school in Butler County where his district is, and so there was a real personal connection here.

So he brought this bill forward to try to lower those requirements in law since the requirements in law already were more than 700 hours.

But I think there's also a goal to try to get this in place before school starts again in the fall and for teachers to who want to be armed and districts that want to have armed personnel in their schools, and it's not limited to just teachers.

Teachers, faculty, staff, volunteers, any adult, essentially to have those training obligations in place to know what's expected, and so that I think is part of the rush here in moving this forward.

But of course, the school shooting in Uvalde and others that have happened really pushed those who wanna see this happen to move it forward.

- We think so much about things happening in Columbus along party lines, but we actually had two Republican senators, one House member not on board.

What was their reasoning?

Why did they step back?

- Well, I didn't talk to all of them, but I did talk to Senator Matt Dolan.

He was one of the two senators, he and Senator Stephanie Kunze from Hilliard here near Columbus.

And Senator Dolan told me that he felt the bill was rushed and that school districts and local police didn't have time to weigh in.

The one hearing that happened the day that the bill was passed out of committee, there were several people from teachers unions and from law enforcement testifying saying that they thought this was not a good idea, that there wasn't enough training, and that the idea of more guns in schools is really concerning to them, but that was his rationale here.

So I think it is interesting to note that it did not pass along strict party lines, that there were some Republicans who split away and sided with Democrats on this, but in the end, it's not gonna matter because Governor Mike DeWine says he's gonna sign it.

- You mentioned law enforcement there.

What's been the reaction from enforcement, from teachers, even from parents?

- Well, and in my conversation with Senator Dolan, he even mentioned that many teachers, most teachers don't want to be armed, and just anecdotally, the teachers I've talked to have said they don't wanna do this.

And so the question I think will be to look at, once this is in place, how many teachers actually come forward saying that they want to carry weapons in schools.

The teachers unions who testified said that they are opposed to this.

Again, law enforcement testified opposed to this.

So I think the impact of this will be very interesting to see and where exactly the districts are that make the choice to allow armed adults in schools.

And in announcing yesterday that he would sign the bill, Governor Mike DeWine also said that he would make more training available for school districts that want that extra training because certainly 24 hours doesn't seem like a lot, and a lot of folks that would potentially be armed also do have other training.

They're retired police officers or military or that sort of thing.

But that 24 hours really sticks out for a lot of people as just not enough training to really deal with all the scenarios and the possibilities that could happen in a school with a shooter.

- Marlene, part of the national dialogue, certainly following Uvalde, has focused on hardening the schools as potential targets out there.

Are there concerns about the impact that this could have on the students themselves, young people, being impressionable, and locked in a fortress?

- Yeah, I think that's a really good word, Rick, is a fortress.

Some of the proposals that I've seen out there, not necessarily just for Ohio, but across the nation, really will make schools look like prisons.

We're talking like high fencing all around the building and - One door in, one door out.

- One door in, one door out, a guard at the door.

Of course, I'm not a practitioner, but just common sense tells you that this will have an impact on kids and their mental health.

One thing that I think is really interesting in this, too, Rick, is I think we need to follow the money.

For example, what I'm saying is who will benefit if we turn our schools into fortresses, right?

And I've read that there's an industry that has sprung up around this, and there are people who are gonna make money if we start turning our schools into places that have this high security and all that.

- Karen, check me on that.

Isn't one of the co-sponsors of the bill in the legislature someone whose company does school security?

- Well, the chair of the Senate committee, Senator Frank Hoagland, the committee that he was the sponsor of the bill and the chair of the committee that the bill came through, he does own a business that does advise schools on security, and one of the people who testified, one of the three people who either provided written or spoken testimony in that one hearing where the bill was passed outta committee, is also on the staff of his company.

So there certainly are some questions about what the connection and whether that's a conflict of interest there.

But one thing that is important to remember here is that while this is completely up to school districts to do in terms of having armed personnel, school boards make that decision, there is a lot of money that's coming from the state to increase school security in general.

The Capitol bill has about $100 million to increase security around schools.

And for our TV show, "The State of Ohio," this week, I talked to an Ohio State University professor who's been studying some of this, and he said that the research indicates that kids who are surrounded by some of this extra security, they don't necessarily feel safer, and quite often, they feel more fearful because there is so much of this going on around them that it really doesn't make them feel like they're more protected.

They actually have a more fearful attitude.

And one of the other things that's interesting to note here is that, and this was brought up in the committee testimony, quite often, school shooters are students or former students of the school where they carry out their attacks.

And so to arm teachers and to arm personnel, they may end up facing a student that they have known, and what the impact on teachers is potentially is pretty amazing on that and very, very tragic.

- That's a great point, Karen, and also, I wanted to just point out that typically we try to learn from situations and then craft legislation based on what we've learned.

If we just look at the situation in Uvalde, if we had an armed teacher in that classroom where that shooter came in with body armor and the kind of gun that he had, would that teacher have been able to defend that classroom with a gun, with a typical kind of gun?

I don't think so.

We saw that the police officers themselves were hesitant to go in against that kind of a gun, a AK- - Yeah.

That's a whole different story about what they knew and what they didn't, but yeah, you're right.

- Right, but what I'm saying is like the even trained police officers didn't feel like that they could go in up against someone with that kind of a gun.

So how could a teacher in a classroom with 25 hours of training go up against someone?

So we seem to be flying against what we just learned in Texas.

- Gabriel.

- And we all have teacher friends.

Teachers are people who are overworked, underpaid, not a lot of free time to add to their agenda.

Training in this regard would certainly add a lot of stress and perhaps would never actually be sufficient to put them in a situation where they could properly handle something like that.

- It's not just the 25 hours.

You would also have to go back for continued training, continued education, in this case, because skills with a gun will erode.

- Teachers don't go to undergrad with that in mind.

- No.

- And I just wanted to note, too, then, in addition to schools, we just had this shooting in Oklahoma at a hospital, and so schools are targets, but now we have hospitals that are targets.

We had a person go in who was upset about the doctor and didn't feel like the doctor did a good job, and this person was still in pain.

So now in the hospital industry, they're talking about hardening hospitals.

We talk about hardening schools, and Cleveland Clinic told Modern Healthcare that they have several active training programs throughout the year.

So they're already going through scenarios with their staff at Cleveland Clinic at all their hospitals about what do you do if you have an active shooter.

But now hospitals like the clinic and others will have to think about, "What do we do to harden our hospital facilities along with schools?"

(riveting music) - Ford has announced that we'll bring production of an all-electric vehicle to the Ohio assembly plant in Lorain County.

That means 1,800 new unionized jobs.

Gabe, scale of this investment something we've not seen in decades.

Makes a good on a promise they had earlier though.

- Right.

Ford had made this promise before the pandemic had started.

Obviously the pandemic started and things have changed, but you're talking about decades of uncertainty in this region as far as manufacturing goes, and there's people relying on these jobs, and every day, you're worried about this job going away, and it heightens in the last two years.

So certainly to have this kind of commitment, if you're someone who works in this region, if you're someone who relies on that type of income, this certainly at least provides you something to look forward to for the time being.

- Governor out there yesterday was effusive with his excitement.

It really looks like Ohio's starting to carve out a place in terms of future manufacturing and future high tech.

- Yeah, and when you think about not just this company but Lordstown Motors, which certainly has had its troubles in the last few years, but Ohio being at the forefront of at least trying to produce these types of products, it does a few things.

Primarily, it brings potential jobs, but as we're being innovative in this way, Ohio's been the forefront of manufacturing for a very long time.

Ohioans have always relied on manufacturing jobs, and now, these are different kinds of manufacturing.

We're talking about batteries and computer chips and Ford vehicles, and at a time now where we've seen such supply chain issues, Ohio won't necessarily have to rely on outside sources.

Now they're being made here in the state.

- Produce it ourselves.

Karen, we know that Ford's getting some incentive help from the state, but they aren't telling us how much.

- Well, it actually was reported by the "Washington Post" yesterday that Ohio's offering about $200 million in incentives to Ford, Michigan offering about $150 million because there's some investment there as well.

Apparently, there are no incentives in the investment that Ford's making in Missouri, which is a smaller project, but $200 million in investments when you compare that to more than, well, in the Capitol budget, it's $1.1 billion that the state is offering in incentives to Intel.

These are typically incentives that are designed.

They're all worked out, and quite often, they have claw back provisions in them, so if the state doesn't get what it's expecting, then they can claw back that money.

So there was definitely, I think, an interest in trying to bring this project forward.

- Is this something lawmakers have to stay on top of as we bring in more technology to the state that they have to craft laws that are gonna make it positive for Ohio?

- Well, I think that definitely they watch all these projects as they come forward, and quite often, legislation is needed to move some of these things and put things in place.

Like I just said, the Capitol bill with $1.1 billion in incentives and investments for Intel.

These are just the things that happen in the legislature to try to bring big companies and push those tax incentives out there but also make sure that the state isn't on the hook.

If a company decides, "Hey, we're not gonna do this," well, then there's potentially the option to try to bring some of that money back.

(riveting music) - An August 2nd primary's been set after a federal court intervened in Ohio's redistricting mess.

The court implemented a map to use, one that was already tossed out by the Ohio Supreme Court.

Karen, the federal court intervention was for this upcoming August primary.

What happens after that?

Commission still technically is supposed to be drawing new maps, and I think a deadline was today.

- The redistricting commission has work to do, and arguably, one of the things that I keep hearing about these maps is that they really do violate the Constitution, not only in the idea of them being unconstitutionally gerrymandered, which the 2015 constitutional amendment prohibits, but also that there is no provision in the Constitution for a map or a set of maps that's only used for one election cycle 'cause these maps that are being put into place for the August 2nd primary and for the November election are only for this election cycle.

The redistricting commission has to do other maps.

The Constitution specifically says four-year or 10-year maps.

So this is really a unique situation that puts Ohio and what's been happening here in violation of what voters overwhelmingly approved in 2015 to change the process of drawing those district maps.

- And even though it's a one time, one use only map that we're going to use, these are full terms with the legislatures who win these races.

- Right, but in the House, they're only two-year terms.

In the Senate, they'd be four-year terms.

But yeah, that's an interesting point, and I think that's part of the reason why the Supreme Court, I'm sorry, why the constitutional amendment specifically says four or 10-year terms because that covers four-year terms for senators and two year terms for state representatives.

But yeah, there there's still work to do while the fight arguably is over for this election cycle, it appears, because the federal court has said, "You're gonna use these maps, and they're gonna go forward August 2nd for the primary and then for the November election."

There still have to be maps that have to be worked out, and so we're not done with redistricting.

As much as we wanna be, (laughs) as much as for the last nine-plus months, we've been talking about this and probably frustrating and maybe even boring people with this, it's not over yet.

And this is really, I think, frustrating for all the people who've been following this, especially for people who have been really invested and said this is not what voters wanted when they approved that constitutional amendment overwhelmingly in 2015.

- Frustrating for voters, frustrating for the people you just listed, frustrating for candidates who don't necessarily know how to run because they don't know which district they live in yet.

But it's also frustrating for taxpayers because we're footing the cost for extra elections, extra map drawing sessions, et cetera, et cetera.

- Yeah, and the deadline to file actually was not extended.

So the folks who filed to run as state representatives or state senators back in February, that was the filing deadline.

So even though the primary is set for August 2nd, there won't be another opportunity for people to file their petitions and run.

And we've had at least one incident that I can think of where two Democratic candidates were paired in the same district and one had to step down or said she was going to step down to give the other who was an incumbent the opportunity to continue on.

So it's very frustrating for people who had wanted to run and now either find themselves in a situation where they can't run or their district has changed and maybe they thought it was a safe district and now it's a toss-up district, and so that's very frustrating in that regard and then, of course, the $20 million that's necessary to run this August 2nd primary.

August 2nd, it's typically a special election day anyway, but quite often, there's only maybe one on the ballot.

Now you've got 99 House races, and I think it's either 15 or 16 Senate races, and so it's gonna take $20 million.

That money was in a bill that also would put half a billion dollars into projects in Ohio's 32-county Appalachian region.

So taxpayers are having to pay for this.

(riveting music) - Sports betting is coming to Ohio but not until January 1st of 2023.

That means betters will miss out on the upcoming regular season for college and professional football.

Gabe, what betters can do is bet on all types of sports.

Football, though, is the big draw.

- Football is definitely the big draw.

Football, professional football was created here in Ohio, right?

But think about sports.

You got the Browns playing at one, some other team playing at four o'clock on a Sunday, and another game on Sunday night.

This is an event.

This is your entire Sunday dedicated to this, and this is a day after you're watching your Ohio State Buckeyes at noon, and then you watch some other team at four o'clock, and then you have the the primetime game as you- - [Rick] You sound like a diehard.

You realize that.

- Well, I spent- - He's describing what sounds like heaven to some people.

- I spent a few weekends watching football.

And that's the thing.

- Wow.

- The Guardians play a few times a week, and the Cavaliers will play a few times a week, but when it comes to football, it's a huge event where people are watching.

- It's a day, right.

- It's a day, and we already have games in place that are tremendous draws, fantasy football, the daily fantasy football, these things, and these are things that people wanna be involved with.

So I think in the minds of people like, "Yeah, January 1st seems like an obvious date to start things," but you're missing out on a lot of action before that, where a lot of criticism being that this bill was slow to go and you're missing out on a lot of revenue.

- And Karen, a lot of that is because there's a lot to do for the Control Commission between now and January.

- Yeah, the Casino Control Commission made the announcement a couple of days ago, allowing sports betting to start on January 1st, 2023.

The legislature had passed all the specifics and the particulars here.

There are about 3,000 applications for business interests that want to be a part of this.

We're talking about bringing sports betting to casinos and to also liquor control or licensed liquor establishments, online.

There is a lot to do in just these, well, less than six months before sports gambling is supposed to start.

And of course, there's a lot of questions, too, about whether Ohio is so late to the game here that the kind of money that other states have seen, Ohio just won't be able to capitalize on it.

But certainly, for the folks who wanted to see this happen, it's been a long time coming.

The US Supreme Court decision that allowed states to allow gambling happened quite a while ago, and so they've been waiting for this opportunity.

Ohio's a big sports state, obviously, and so it's time for some people to, they say they wanna do it.

(riveting music) - We are into summer, but COVID-19 has made no vacation plans.

Masks are again being recommended in Cuyahoga County due to the spread of the virus.

Marlene, officials want us to start masking up again, but I'm not seeing compliance.

That's easier said than done.

- It's much easier said than done, Rick.

You're right.

When I'm out and about, I'm not seeing a whole lot of people masking up right now.

It's a hard sell for people.

It's summertime, and people were really looking forward to finally having a great COVID-free summer, but unfortunately, here we are back again.

Experts would tell you they're not surprised because we took the masks off in public, and so the numbers went back up.

The good news, though, Rick, is that even as the case numbers are climbing, we're still not seeing a big increase in hospitalizations and deaths, and that's wonderful.

And the other big news is that finally, finally, it looks like there's gonna be a vaccine available for kids under five.

We had the president announce that last night.

- Yeah, this has been difficult for parents of kids under five, but they wanted that vaccine.

It could come later this month, that soon?

- Yeah, they're saying around June 21st, and, in fact, starting today, places, municipalities, governments can start ordering the vaccine to get 'em in place.

The Pfizer has asked for emergency authorization from the FDA and the CDC, so there's still some things that have to happen before they can actually start getting shots in the arm.

There's been a group of vocal parents who have been like waiting for this, but we're gonna see what the uptake actually is because we haven't seen a huge uptake in that five to 16-year-old group that's been available for a while.

- Put your health leadership hat on for me here and talk about COVID itself.

It's summertime.

A lot of people thought warm weather, it would go away.

This bad boy is not staying in one lane.

- No, it is not.

Well, experts have been telling us from the beginning that this thing is unpredictable, and if we don't reach a certain level of herd immunity, that mutations will continue to happen in different parts of the world.

We're not an island here in the United States.

So mutations can start in one country and spread around the world, and we've seen that pattern over and over again.

We still do not have a vaccination rates where the government and health officials would like it to be.

We're hovering around, I believe it's like 60%.

- Nationally or Ohio?

- Ohio.

Karen might know that number better than I do, but I think it's around 60% that we're hovering around in Ohio, and so we really would like that to be much higher in order for us to stop this pattern of mutations happening and then spreading around the world again, and it keeps going over and over again.

But there's just a staunch group of people who are saying, "We are not taking that vaccine."

- We are talking about living with COVID-19 now, not just trying to get around it.

The vigilance is exhausting to people.

- It is.

Experts are saying we're into the endemic phase, which means it's going to be around, similar to the flu is always around.

But as we just said, Rick, people are tired.

People are tired of wearing the masks.

They're tired of not being able to see their friends.

They're tired of being told you can't go and eat in this restaurant in tours, right?

And so it's really, really hard.

So the feeling I get is that people are like, "Whatever, we're just gonna live with this thing."

- Right, and I think there's also a feeling of like, it's like, you get a taste of like, "Hey, we're okay without masks," and now it's back to masks, and now it's okay being indoors, and now it's back to being not okay with indoors.

And I think that additionally, that back and forth gets exhausting for a lot of people, - Yeah.

- myself included.

- Exhausting.

That's a good word.

People are exhausted.

- It is disorienting.

Okay.

(riveting music) LeBron James may refer to himself as just a kid from Akron, but the business world has a new title for him, billionaire.

James is the first active NBA player to reach the billionaire milestone, according to Forbes.

He still pulls down the superstar salary with the Lakers, but, of course, but Marlene, he's got a number of lucrative business deals out there.

- Yeah, he does.

I have to say I'm really proud of him, (laughs) actually, making this milestone.

And one of the things that I admire about him, in addition to his business acumen, and obviously, he's a good businessman, like Magic Johnson, like Michael Jordan.

They've been able to capitalize on their fame also, but he also is a person who continues to give back from his fame and from his money, and he gives back to this community and particularly to Akron.

He continues to support the I Promise School, and I think that's fantastic.

- And that mantra, that mantra, that just a kid from Akron mantra, I think that inspires a lot of people who either grew up in Akron, places similar to Akron, and makes 'em feel like, "Hey."

Obviously, it's not easy to become the greatest basketball player of all time, but to be in that- - [Marlene] So you're saying he's the GOAT?

- I am saying that.

Of course, I'm saying that.

Hey, I grew up 20 minutes from Akron, so maybe I'm next.

I'm just saying.

- I think he's the GOAT, too, but I'm sure many people are really screaming at the radio right now because it's not universal.

- There's some Michael Jordan fans out there.

- That's right.

- That's what I'm saying.

- You think he has another "Space Jam" in him?

- I don't see why not if the paycheck's there.

- Monday on the "Sound of Ideas" on 89.7 WKSU, we look at how Northeast Ohio continues to be a destination for immigrants and refugees looking to escape conflict, such as in Ukraine and Afghanistan, building a new life here.

I'm Rick Jackson.

Thanks for watching.

(soft contemplative music) (upbeat electronic music)