(upbeat music) - The midterm election is just days away, and national attention is focused on a northeast Ohio US House race, and the state's US Senate race, both of which could play a role in the balance of power in Washington.

Is Burke Lakefront Airport, the best use of prime waterfront property in Cleveland?

And Cleveland mayor, Justin Bibb quickly backtracks on a policy requiring all residents to bag their leaves.

"Ideas" is next.

(upbeat music) Hello and welcome to "Ideas," I'm Mike McIntyre.

Thanks for joining us.

It's the home stretch to Election day as we hit the final weekend of early voting.

And Ohioans have been taking advantage of early voting and bigger numbers than in 2018.

Control the United States House of Representatives and the US Senate is on the line.

And key races for each chamber are right here in Ohio.

The race for US Senate between JD Vance and Tim Ryan, and the contest between Amelia Sykes and Madison Gesiotto Gilbert for Ohio's 13th Congressional District.

The city of Cleveland commissioned yet another study to determine whether there is a better use for prime downtown waterfront land than its current use as Burke Lakefront Airport and Cleveland residents complained loudly when the city announced this week that all residents would have to bag their leaves, the city heard the policy was reversed, and those in high volume neighborhoods can rake their leaves to the curb.

We'll talk about those stories and the rest of the week's news on the reporter's round table.

Joining me this week from Ideastream Public Media, director of engaged journalism, Marlene Harris Taylor.

Also from Ideastream, Criminal Justice Reporter Matt Richmond.

And in Columbus, Ohio Public Radio State House News Bureau Chief Karen Kasler.

Let's get ready to round table.

Control of the United States House of Representatives and the Senate is on the line and the US Senate race in Ohio, as well as the race for Ohio's 13th congressional district could play a big role.

Karen, a number of GLP leaders have come to help Vance stump for votes.

Ryan's campaign has been choosy about its campaign surrogates, it seems.

- Well, yeah, if you're referencing that Tim Ryan has not been campaigning with President Biden while Biden has been focusing on different areas, and now of course you've seen former President Obama is actually coming out on the campaign trail to support some candidates as well.

But yeah, Ryan's had some interesting alliances here.

I mean, he had a free concert with Dave Matthews band in Columbus a week or so ago, and Bernie Kosar came out.

And as a Browns fan, I have to say I was like this close to Bernie Kosar.

It was really exciting.

But Bernie Kosar spoke at the 2016 Republican Convention in Cleveland.

So that's interesting to note that Ryan brought him in and has been really trying to bring in those moderate Republican votes.

He did an event just a couple of days ago, I think maybe even last night, where he was campaigning with former Shelby County Republican party chair Chris Gibbs, who's been outspoken about his concerns about Trump and the Republican Party.

And I think the whole appearance that Ryan and Vance did on Fox News this week where they did this town hall, I think that really indicates that they were both willing to do that.

It indicates that these are the voters that Ryan knows he needs to win the state that Donald Trump won in 2016 and in 2020.

- Karen, the town hall, interesting point.

It was on Fox News and it's one of the things Ryan pushed and said, "Hey man, I'm going on Fox News, I'll go anywhere."

But if you looked at that forum, a lot of pretty tough follow-up questions, a lot of sort of leading questions that seemed by the moderators there.

And when Vance was asked questions, I think there might have been one follow up.

And at one point Vance said, "Oh boy, you gave me a softball and I didn't hit it.

Thanks for pitching it to me again.

I'll talk about my military service."

- Well, if you think that Vance doesn't have friends at Fox News, you haven't watched Fox News.

I mean, he was on Tucker Carlson just in the last couple of days.

And of course, there is a difference in some respects between the news division and the personalities that are on Fox.

But clearly, Vance has had friends at Fox all along, and so he was likely, I would think, going to expect a certain level of treatment.

I think that Ryan being there and taking those follow up questions and those tougher questions is really an interesting note in the way that he's been approaching this campaign that he's from the very beginning, he seems to have been focused on trying to find those voters who are Republicans, who are moderate Republicans, who are Republicans who are frustrated with Trump and see him as an alternative.

And so it's just been an interesting campaign to watch.

And if it works, I mean, Ryan has taken some pages from Sherry Brown's playbook, but also in trying to court these Republican voters from other Republicans.

If it works, it's a really interesting strategy for a Midwestern Democrat to try.

- Right, he's talked about agreeing with Trump on China and trade policy.

He's talked now about how he would vote yes on issues one and two.

Those are seen mainly as issues that Republicans would back and Democrats have spoken out against.

So he is trying to stake that independent ground, and yet you see in the ads, and they're not incorrect that he has voted with the Biden administration entirely.

- Right and he's never denied that that's not the case.

It's just he doesn't talk about that part of it because that's not the voters he's trying to pull in.

And it's interesting you mention issues one and two, while Tim Ryan and JD Vance seemed to both be supportive of both those issues.

So are the candidates on the Republicans are on the gubernatorial race?

Both Republican Mike DeWine and Democrat Anne Whaley say that they are supportive at least of issue one.

And I think that that's interesting because that was an issue that was, I think a lot of people saw as an issue to try to draw Republican voters out in a year where Republicans were predicted to do well anyway.

Of course, issue one is the bail reform issue.

It says that judges and courts must take public safety into consideration when assigning bail, which critics have said could really hurt low income people who can't afford bail.

So all of this is really coming together a very interesting ballot here and really a lot of Republican talking points here in all of these races, I think.

- I wanna ask you guys in studio here, this question too.

I was at the event where Liz Cheney was interviewed by Judy Woodruff from the PBS News Hour at the City Club of Cleveland event, and she endorsed Tim Ryan.

First she said, "I would not vote for JD Vance," then in a follow up question said, "If I were in Ohio, I would vote for Tim Ryan."

And five minutes later said, "Hey, I just endorsed a Democrat five minutes ago."

So clearly it was an endorsement.

Marlene, does that help or hurt Tim Ryan in Ohio, given?

- That's a good question.

I was there too, Mike.

And the moment she said that, being news people, I was like, that's the clip.

She just made news in Ohio.

- [Mike] Yes.

- I think might help him on the margins because as Karen said, he's going after moderate Republicans.

And I think that's the group that Liz Cheney also appeals to is moderate Republicans.

Ryan says he's going after, say, for example, the moderate Republicans in the Columbus suburbs, right.

And those would be the same folks that would appreciate what Cheney has done in terms of standing up for democracy.

- I guess Matt, if this race, Tim Ryan's race was in Liz Cheney's district in Wyoming, that probably wouldn't help since she got, as she mentioned, she got hammered pretty good there.

But maybe among the moderates here.

- Yeah, yeah.

It seems like there is not, a considerable number of people who would like an alternative to the Donald Trump wing of the party.

And Tim Ryan has to go after that to have a chance in statewide in Ohio.

- Speaking of the Donald Trump wing and Donald Trump, he is coming for another Vance rally, Karen.

- Yes.

- Side note to that is that Governor DeWine says he'll attend, it's the first time he didn't have a haircut or something.

- Well, I think it's really one of the more interesting moments of this whole campaign, DeWine was with all the Republican candidates who are running yesterday where they launched a bus tour of Ohio.

And DeWine said to my State House News Bureau colleague, Andy Chow, at that event, "I don't look at things from a partisan point of view."

He was standing in front of a bus with Republican party emblems and candidates names on it, but said, "I don't look at things from a partisan point of view."

This appearance at this Trump rally is really interesting because I think a lot of people wondered if DeWine really had any fondness for Trump, because Trump was just so different from how DeWine has always been viewed and portrayed himself.

A lifelong Republican who believed in bipartisanship when he was in the Senate, a family man devoted to his wife and compassionate for kids.

DeWine had, as you mentioned, avoided appearing with Trump in other settings and other rallies.

He did greet Trump at the airport when he came to the rally in Youngstown, September.

And DeWine is leading by double digits.

So it's one of these moments where you wonder, is this an indication that DeWine is and has been supportive of Trump, or is this something else?

I mean, his campaign has been rejecting debates.

He's been canceling interviews, including one with me two weeks ago.

But doing these very partisan events like this bus tour and now the Trump rally.

- Hold on, you don't cancel an interview with Karen Kasler?

- He did.

- Wow.

- That's really out there.

- I think it's really interesting that DeWine has not gotten hammered for not doing any debates in Ohio.

There's some other, oh.

- He is gotten hammered on social media.

- On social media, but I don't, well, maybe I should say in the media, in the mainstream media, not social media, because there's other candidates across the country who are not debating, and I hear more talk about those candidates.

Why are they scared, why are they hiding?

I mean, maybe it's the Whaley campaign.

Maybe it should be up to them to maybe do more political ads or something hammering him.

But it seems to me that he's relatively gotten away with this scot free.

- Well, I know we've talked about it on this show for sure, almost every week for the last couple of weeks.

And we've done a couple of stories about how DeWine did not, he didn't do the debates with the Ohio Debate Commission in March, and he didn't do this debate that was planned for the University of Akron and any other debate, He hasn't done any forums, he hasn't done any of these others.

We've talked about this.

- Oh yeah.

- And Whaley's campaign has also talked about it, but Whaley's campaign suffers from an extreme lack of money, at least at this point.

And so, yeah, it's hard.

We, in the media, we present these opportunities, but we can't make the candidates debate.

That's up to them and it's up to voters to decide if this is important to them.

- Let's move on to another race that I teased a little bit earlier.

We talked last week about how ugly the ads have been in the race between Amelia Sykes of Akron and Madison Gesiotto Gilbert of North Canton.

That spending is evidence, this race is very close and it's really being watched nationally.

- This is an interesting race because it's one of the few potential toss ups in Ohio.

There are really only three that have been looked at as potentially leaning one way or the other.

This one is leaning toward the Democrat Amelia Sykes, according to Sabato's Crystal Ball outta the University of Virginia.

Also the race up in Toledo between longtime Democratic Congresswoman Marcy Captor and Trump endorsed Republican JR. Majewski, it's leaning toward captor.

And then down in Cincinnati you've got longtime Republican Congressman Steve Chabot in a race with Democrat Greg Landsman.

That one's leaning towards Chabot.

So these three tossups, there are so few races in the US at this point that are competitive.

So if either party thinks that they could get a foothold here, they're gonna spend some money on it.

- And I should just note that Sabato's Crystal Ball is not an actual crystal ball.

It's like a publication, right?

It's a.

- Yeah, it's an online, it's a website, it's an online newsletter.

One of the things people are doing though, is coming out to the polls.

Marlene indications are that early voting is ahead of 2018 numbers.

It appears people are showing up to vote early in person, more so than mailing in the absentee ballots.

- Yeah, I went and voted early and it wasn't packed, but there was a nice flow of people coming through here in Cuyahoga County and people are showing up.

Now, what does that mean in terms of the impact on the races?

Are there more Democrats showing up versus more Republicans showing up?

I'm not sure about that in Ohio.

So just because the numbers are up, peoples tend to think, well, that favors the Democrats, right?

But that's not necessarily so.

There's some suburban type areas, or I should say rural type areas right outside of suburbs where the numbers are also up.

So we don't know.

- Karen.

- I will tell you one thing.

There's a group target Smart, which is democratically aligned, but it still looks at data and it pulls down data from various states and voting data specifically.

And it is saying that the percentages of younger voters, people under about 39 are really quite low compared to what they were in 2018.

So I don't know what that means.

I'm just presenting this as a fact according to Target Smart here, because you can look at the voter file and see the ages of people, the birth dates of people who voted.

And so, it certainly does suggest that younger voters are not turning out on the numbers that they said they were going to turn out in.

But we still have election day, we still have a whole other weekend.

This whole weekend is another early voting weekend.

So all of this is just as of five days before the election.

- That's true, Karen.

And the younger voters always are like that, that goal that everybody's looking for, and they always think they're gonna turn out and they never come out in the numbers that the politicians hope that they will.

But, we'll see if they do show up on election day.

(suspenseful music) - Investigations are underway into two deaths on the same day this week of people who'd been in custody at the Cuyahoga County Jail.

Four people have died in the jail this year.

14 others have died there since 2018.

The US Marshall Service wrote a blistering report about the jail back then leading to the conviction of former jail administrator, Kenneth Mills.

The county's years long effort to build a new jail is now stalled after officials differed on an industrial site the county had proposed.

And now we're seeing, more of the reason it seems, Matt, that they're looking into this issue, the jail's not adequate, et cetera.

And now we're not, we don't know the causes of death in these situations.

We don't know if it was anything related to conditions in jail or anything else.

But how troubling is it that we're seeing two more deaths this year after this spate in 2018 would've, and the public publicizing of it would've said, okay, let's get the act together.

- Yeah and like you said, we don't know what happened.

There was an announcement from the sheriff's department that they were gonna increase the number of drug sniff dogs.

They were gonna take out part of the bed frame, which I guess is a suicide prevention measure.

I mean, I think it's worth pointing out that it's not clear that a new building would've solved any of these problems.

These two people and everyone that goes into the jail on their way in the jail, they should get a medical screening.

So how is it that so quickly after arriving, they died and once in the cell there, we don't know 'cause there's an investigation, but are there enough corrections officers to make regular checks on people in the cell?

And so, building a new a new jail is not going to necessarily fix those issues.

- Something's not right.

- That's right.

- Right, I mean, it's whether it's the manpower, whether it's the equipment, the way the cells are set up, all of that, when you look at it into totality, when someone is arrested and booked into the county jail, they're not convicted of a felony at that point.

None of that is the case.

It should be a place where you're awaiting arraignment and trial, death shouldn't be part of the equation.

- Right, yeah, there are big problems there.

And one of the things that came out in the whole jail planning process is that, last year, the average stay at that jail was over 200 days.

Which, and if most of the people there are there waiting for a trial, the idea that they're holding people in there for 200 days just to get their court case kind of settled is kind of frightening.

It should be much, much less than that.

- Marlene, we pointed this out all along.

Leaders are arguing about whether to renovate or build a new jail or where to build and all of that stuff, but people held in the jail and those working there are still dealing with these conditions.

- Yeah and I think that the point that Matt made about lack of manpower is an important one because when people come in, if they're not screened, we don't know if they're dealing with some kind of drug issue.

I mean, we all know, we've reported for years that the jail is the biggest place where we're putting people right now who are dealing with drug problems.

And we don't know if that was the case yet in these two people who died, but it seems to me that we took the steps to bring in Metro health to beef up the medical care there, but we're still having death.

So it's clear that something has to change.

I know that the jail, like everybody else, the city, the county, were all dealing with staffing shortages.

And I know that's true for corrections officers as well, especially during COVID.

Many people decided they didn't wanna do that job anymore because jails and holding detention centers were places where COVID was running kind of rampant.

So, we've got a serious problem.

I don't know that building a new building will fix all the issues.

It will help from what we hear from the officials, it will help with spacing, being able to see inmates better and that kind of thing.

But it seems to me like one of the things that needs to be part of this conversation is how do we put fewer people in that space?

- That's one of the big questions that's being put to both of the county executive candidates.

In fact, you did a story, Matt, about their thoughts about the jail.

Both of them said, "We need to get the populations down."

- Yeah, yeah.

And that's also gonna be very tricky.

Lee Winegart points to the judges and says that they're not moving their docket fast enough.

Not getting people in front of them for trial as quickly as they should.

And Chris Ronee says, we need to do all of the different measures that we can to divert people from a jail.

And one of the big problems that they're gonna have is to, any new plan for a jail that they have has to be approved by the state.

And the state's gonna look at how many people are usually in the jail and are you planning for something that's gonna be able to safely hold the number that we're at right now.

So it's gonna be very difficult for them to say, we want to drop it to 1300 beds, when for the past two years it's been 16, 1700 people.

(upbeat music) - Cleveland is commissioning another study to determine whether there's a better use for the 450 acres of land now occupied by Burke Lakefront Airport.

It's been there since 1947.

The idea of closing it and redeveloping the land has always been a topic of conversation and it's gained momentum under Mayor Justin Bibb.

So Marlene, Burke doesn't get a lot of use, but it's proximity to downtown makes it handy for those who do use it.

- Yeah and the mayor campaigned on this too, that he was open to this where the prior administration was not open to changing the situation at the lakefront.

The lakefront, the airport there is used by business leaders in town, by corporations, is used by celebrities when they come to town for things like the rock hall induction.

So it does get some use, but the use has been going down over the years.

So there are many people who are pushing for the public to have more access to that prime lakefront property.

450 acres, I believe it is a property.

But you also have the pushback that, well, that land isn't very good anyway.

There's a bunch of, it's built on sediment and there's a lot of garbage.

- And that was a landfill.

- Yeah, so once you dig down just a little bit, you're gonna get into garbage.

So it'll be interesting to see what this new study brings back in terms of what kind of use could go on that kind of space and the potential there.

I think the city is ready to see something different there.

What do you think, Mike?

- Not my role.

I just ask questions.

I can tell you, as I said earlier, it definitely is the topic of conversation.

Just bring up Burke at a party in Cleveland and you're gonna have conversation.

And much of it, as you said, Marlene, is why do we have an airport on our lakefront?

And similarly, why are there sewage plants on a lakefront when you can put those in Lynn, all these "Ideas" of how we've used our lakefront and how it could be better.

And in fact, that's a big conversation that's going on now.

The North Coast connector project, which would be adjacent to where Burke Lakefront airport is, where the Cleveland Brown Stadium is, this land bridge that would go over the shoreway that has been a topic of public sessions the first one last night.

Five more are planned these town halls to say, what do people wanna see in the lakefront?

And Matt, that's part of that overall vision.

Will Cleveland finally get the lakefront right?

- Yeah and there's parks on the east side too.

I mean, and then it's also the county has been talking about from one, from the western edge to the eastern edge, putting in a bunch more public access points to the lake.

Particularly, there's a lot of spots that are owned either by the sewer district or some cases by the county.

- Or private citizens.

- Yeah, where the county could work out a way to connect to the lake.

And it is such a great asset.

I live by Edgewater Park and in the summer I'm there every day.

- One last thing, Marlene.

One drawback for any possible development would be that while the location is ideal, the land itself is not.

You mentioned that.

- Yeah.

- So when they look at these, this study that they're conducting, we'll look at usage as a park, for example.

You could just grass it over or as development, that might be money making, high density development.

Maybe it's places where people live, or it's retail or those kinds of things.

The thing that would be more troublesome would be the big construction projects where you'd have to get down to bedrock, which there isn't any.

- Right, if you wanna build something like say a casino on that spot or some other.

- [Mike] We don't.

- I thought you didn't have opinions on this, Mike.

- We don't wanna build a casino.

- Or some other mixed use.

Maybe it's like one of these malls where you kind of have a outdoor kind mall.

I don't know if that work on the lake front though.

There would be a lot of cold air coming across in the wintertime, but whatever they come up with, if it's something that needs a lot of construction, that would be problematic.

But I know many people have advocated over the years, and you probably hear, in the conversations in the bar, that some people would like to just have a park there so that citizens can actually use the space.

(suspenseful music) - As complaints piled up this week over Cleveland's sudden announcement that all residents would be required to bag their leaves.

The city turned over a new leaf and bagged its new policy, residents in high volume areas can rake their leaves to the curb as usual.

- Potholes, snow removal, leaf collection.

- Leaf collection.

- The mayor seems to have gotten a lesson in on the ground politics in a city.

- Who knew leaf collection was part of that mix there, Mike?

We knew about the others.

- The timing is so bad.

I mean, how could you do, how could you pick this week to make that announce?

- Yeah, they made the announcement literally as people had rakes in their hands and their backs are being broken and they're trying to just get 'em to the curb.

And now they're like, oh, and by the way, that pile of leaves, that's the entire length of your property and five feet tall.

Put 'em all in bag.

- Put 'em in a bag, yeah.

Now talk about raising the ire of the community.

Like, look, the mayor learned really fast that that's not something that you mess with right now.

And I have to give him credit for backtracking and saying, hey, I've heard you, I've listened to you and we're gonna keep the status quo for right now.

But the mayor was trying to make a case for equity.

And one of the things that you have to consider in Cleveland is that there's different levels of canopy around the town.

And our health team has done a lot of reporting about that in areas that don't have as many resources under resource communities.

There's not a whole lot of tree canopy.

And those are the areas where people were having the bag, their leaves.

And the area where there was a lot of beautiful treeline streets with a lot of tree canopy.

Those were the areas where people were allowed to push him to the curb.

So he was saying, let's be fair here.

But he has to backtrack and say, "Let's think about this some more."

- And what residents and council members are saying is, "Hey, we passed a tax increase for city services and now you're telling us you can't give us this city service, I thought that's what we were paying for."

So equity on the one end your point.

But they're thinking equity.

Okay, then suck up everybody's leaves.

That will be equitable.

- Yeah, that sounds good.

- By the way, you have to have your leaves raked to the tree lawn by November 14th, that's the deadline.

So you've got about, you got 10 days to get cracking.

- There's another option though, leaving some of those leaves in your yard, right?

That's more environmentally friendly.

- Some, and so that's the interesting point.

We have a story on our website from NPR.

You can get it on wksu.org or ideastream.org.

Notes that bagging leaves is bad for the environment.

Every year, 8 million tons of bagged leaves end up in landfills can release methane.

Another thought is a small, a low level layer of leaves left on the ground, preferably mulched up a little bit, is good for your lawn.

You can break 'em.

- You can them in your tree beds.

- I recommend into all of those things.

- All the beds.

- And give some alternatives there when it comes to leaves.

(suspenseful music) Monday on "The Sound of Ideas," on WKSU, healthcare workers are already dealing with a perfect storm of viruses.

And we're not even to winter yet.

COVID persists, the flu is off to an early start and Respiratory Syncytial Virus, RSV is making a lot of children sick.

We'll talk with infectious disease specialists about how to protect yourself and your family.

I'm Mike McIntyre, thanks for watching and stay safe.

(upbeat music)