(upbeat music) - [Mike] Cleveland's police chief makes a tearful announcement that he's leaving in January.

The new mayor-elect said he wants new leadership.

The mayor and the new chief will be charged with implementing Issue 24, increasing civilian oversight of police.

How will that play out?

And rules for new Federal COVID 19 vaccine mandates for employers are rolled out.

And Ohio joins those suing to stop them.

"Ideas" is next.

(upbeat music) Hello and welcome to "Ideas."

I'm Mike McIntyre.

Thanks for joining us.

Cleveland's police chief Calvin Williams announced tearfully yesterday that he's stepping down.

His last day will be January 3rd.

Mayor-elect Justin Bibb made it clear he wanted new leadership in the division of police.

How will the new administration and the new chief implement Issue 24.

And how will it jibe with the existing federal consent decree.

In pandemic news, the Biden administration released details yesterday on a new federal COVID 19 vaccine mandate for employers with 100 or more workers.

What will it mean for employers and workers?

Ohio has joined a lawsuit opposing the mandate.

Meanwhile, Ohio began this week distributing vaccinations to children.

That's not mandated, parents decide on whether to get their kids vaccinated.

We'll talk about that and much more on the reporters round table.

Joining me this week, Ideastream Public Media managing producer for health Marlene Harris-Taylor, also from Ideastream Public Media, reporter Matt Richmond and Statehouse news bureau chief Karen Kasler is in Columbus.

Let's get ready to round table.

Clevelanders voted for change Tuesday with the election of Justin Bibb for mayor and the passage of Issue 24 the charter amendment, that gives more power over police discipline and training and policies to a 13 member community police commission.

Another change there'll be a new police chief.

No surprise there.

Bibb made it clear, Justin Bibb made it clear that he wanted new leadership.

And yesterday police chief Calvin Williams announced he'll retire after leading the department for seven years.

- This is my last official act as a chief of this division.

And I'm gonna miss you guys.

- Obviously a very emotional moment for the chief.

Police spokeswoman, Sergeant Jennifer Ciaccia said his last day will be January 3rd.

Williams opposed Issue 24 and supporters of Issue 24 said it would make for a better police department where police don't investigate themselves.

Matt this is an issue you've been covering for months and it wasn't expected particularly yesterday the chief resigning or announcing that he will be leaving.

When I think Justin Bibb would've announced that for him pretty soon anyway.

- Yeah he said as far back as the first debate that he was gonna change the leadership in the department.

- And the chief and Justin Bibb don't see eye to eye on Issue 24.

But it seems to go further than that.

The whole thing that Justin Bibb has been running on, one of the issues, has been Issue 24.

More police oversight by a civilian board.

But in general, that's an argument really that there needs to be a change in the way policing is happening and Chief Williams wasn't with that.

- Yeah yeah.

From the activist involved in Issue 24 that I've spoken to, they want now for there to be a nationwide search for like real new leadership to be brought in.

- And Justin Bibb has said, though, that he will look within the department as well.

It's not gonna be ruled out.

- Right.

But you know, because of the link between the Issue 24 campaign and Bibb's campaign, those activists are going to not wanna see just, you know, somebody from within the department.

- And it's not just the police chief, there's a Safety Director as well, Karrie Howard who's in that position now.

Any thoughts on whether he'll make a change there or what kind of, I know he's signaled that at least on the sound of ideas on Wednesday morning.

- I mean that will be complicated.

I mean what you've heard in city council is pretty full throated support of Karrie Howard.

He was brought in to fix a problem identified by the police by the consent decree monitor that there wasn't enough accountability in the police department that officers were being let off the hook when there were, when there was a misconduct.

And, you know, according to the monitor, he's begun to to address that.

So it will be a bit trickier to replace Howard.

- Although that's the mayor's right.

- Yup - I mean, it's his cabinet, right?

- That's his cabinet.

- Mike you know, it's interesting though that Chief Williams actually said yesterday.

He was making the argument that he had made this decision a long time ago, so you're right.

Justin Bibb absolutely made it clear he was gonna replace him.

But the chief wants everyone to know that he made this decision back when Frank Jackson said he was not going to run.

- Good point.

The chief, let's talk about his tenure.

So there were these shining moments like the GOP, national convention here, which went off really well when people thought it would go really poorly.

There were a lot of those kind of shining moment issues.

But at the same time, we had some serious issues in the city, violence issues.

And we see the death rate going up the murder rate going up.

Those types of things that you measure a police department and police chief on, as well as issues with discipline of police.

So when you look at all of that Marlene, how do we characterize the chief's tenure?

- Yeah you know, it's interesting that he also, the moments that you picked Mike as his shining moments are also the same moments that he picked as his shining moments.

When he's been speaking about this publicly about after the RNC convention and after the CAVS won the big championship and a million plus people came downtown and the police- - [Mike] I think it was actually a billion.

- Was it a a billion people?

- [Mike] It might have been a billion, yeah.

- I wasn't there for the celebration, that was just before I moved to town.

I was so mad that I missed that.

(laughs) But yeah, so he's had ups and downs and I think any, I mean to be fair, I think any big city police chief is going to have ups and downs, but there was real moments here.

The Tamir Rice shooting, you know twelve-year-old shooting.

And then the aftermath, the protest after that, where, you know, people did not see the police response as very fair to the people who were protesting.

We've also, there was the protest recently over the George Floyd killing when folks came out.

There was also criticism of the police department, the way they handled the protesters there.

So you know the critics of the police departments say that the chief has not gone far enough to build that trust in the community that he was really trying to do the right thing.

So that's what the critics would say about him.

But to your point about crime rising, you know, every weekend in Cleveland, it's almost predictable like clockwork that there's going to be shootings.

And a lot of it is gang related shootings.

And there's so many guns on the street, Mike.

So one of the things that the new police chief, whoever that person ends up being, they're gonna have to tackle that issue right away because people voted for change with Justin Bibb.

They liked the fact that he was an outsider but they still want you to be able to come in right away and deliver when you get in, whether you're an outsider or not.

- Right and even if people want change, when they pick up the phone, they wanna call the police.

- Yeah - They want the police to come.

So it'd be interesting to talk about changing sort of the culture of a police department and yet serving people's needs.

It seems Matt that there really was no way that you could have Calvin Williams as the chief of police with this new Issue 24 civilian police board.

The way he ran against it, the way he campaigned against it, it was clear that he wouldn't, even if you wanted to and even if Justin Bibb wanted him it doesn't sound like he could lead a police department with that as a measure.

- Yeah I think, you know, evidence that he had decided a while ago that he was leaving.

His comments leading up to the election that you know, that the department doesn't trust the Community Police Commission, that something like this could not work.

You know, it definitely closed the door if Issue 24 passed to him staying.

- Mmh, Matt and I were both on 'Sound of Ideas' this week with the chief as a guest on the show.

And he was adamant in his opposition against 24.

- Right absolutely.

So Matt, how do we implement this 13 person commission created by Issue 24?

How did that get implemented and how does it jive with what we already have in place, which was a consent decree that the federal government has over the city of Cleveland?

- Yeah, I've been thinking through this last couple of days, it gets pretty complicated.

The first kind of deadline in there is 30 days after the election certified the law director.

Which, you know, based on that timing should still be the current law director, Barbara Langhenry, who's expressed opposition to Issue 24, has to file a motion in federal court to change the consent decree.

The part of the consent decree that established the current Community Police Commission.

They have to file a motion to change that to reflect what's in this charter amendment.

And what exactly that will look like is very much an open question.

You know, because there are, a lot of the consent decree is about kind of assessing implementation.

Will that be a part of it with the new consent decree, with the new community commission?

Will they want to see how it works?

Will they wanna see how the police commission investigates individual cases?

Will they want to go that far into it or just require the establishment of it?

So lots of open questions there.

And then there's also a requirement for a increased budget for both the new Community Police Commission and the Civilian Police Review Board which handles civilian complaints.

And it doesn't say that they'll wait to the next budget so there will probably be some pressure to start putting money into these new bodies.

And, you know, then it will be appointing 13 new commissioners with city council approval.

- And those commissioners, some of them would be law enforcement and some of them would not, right?

- Yeah, they're from the law enforcement union so, you know, not active on enforcement but people with law enforcement backgrounds.

(dramatic music) - Republican state lawmakers have introduced two proposed congressional district maps for Ohio.

And they're weighted heavily for Republicans.

Critics say the maps are meant to be balanced.

We're losing a seat after the census council.

Ohio will only have 15 districts.

Critics of the maps yet again say it's a majority gerrymander.

Lawmakers got an earful at a hearing yesterday.

And they're in charge of the map making process because the Ohio Redistricting Commission failed to do its job of drawing up bi-partisan maps.

Karen let's look at what people are saying about these two maps.

Are they still Republican heavy?

- Yeah I mean, when the house map was introduced it was said that the map would have eight Republican districts, five competitive districts and two democratic districts.

Reminder, right now we have 12 and four, 12 Republicans, four Democrats.

The Senate map had five Republican districts, eight competitive districts, and still two democratic districts.

Now analysts are saying that they actually, those numbers there, the competitive districts actually lean more Republican.

And so it really gives the impression that we're talking about two democratic districts in the state of Ohio.

In a state that Donald Trump won by eight points.

So, you know, certainly a Republican state but not necessarily a Republican state to the point where you're getting, you know, 13 Republican districts and two democratic districts.

So there's some real questions and concerns here.

Especially among people who voted for those two constitutional amendments.

One for the Ohio house and Senate maps, which were drawn by the Ohio Redistricting Commission and are now in court, there's three lawsuits against those maps because people say they are gerrymandered.

And now you've got this congressional map, so far we don't have a map yet but these really look the same kind of partisan gerrymandering here.

And so I can't help but think that if either one of these two maps is approved we're gonna go right back into the court system and we're gonna run up against these deadlines of filing for people who wanna run for those seats.

- There are a lot of complaints about these maps too that when they were revealed, Republicans didn't provide all the information about them so lawmakers could properly understand them.

So this process seems as opaque as it's ever been.

- Yeah and this is a complaint that Democrats have had for a long time about all sorts of controversial bills.

This one in particular, when the map was introduced in the house, it was introduced at a house hearing and the bill that had been reserved for that only had two lines.

Well then they introduced the map with a substitute bill that had 307 pages, which also listed specific precincts.

So it was really hard to get a sense of where the, what that map actually looked like.

And you know, Democrats were asking representative Scott Oelslager from North Canton who introduced the maps, Hey, what's going on here?

And he kept saying, These are technical questions.

I can't answer them.

I'm here to introduce the map and there'll be more hearings on this later.

So that was frustrating in the house.

In the Senate, there was no bill that I saw and I only got a PDF of the map which is pretty hard to zoom in on and try to figure out exactly where, for instance Columbus is divided into three congressional districts.

Well where is that dividing line?

What part of Columbus is in one and what part of Columbus is in another?

These are the frustrations the Democrats have had about a lot of bills.

And this one especially because we're losing one member of Congress or someone's going to lose their job and the districts are now drawn according to these maps.

It looks like a 13 two split in favor of Republicans.

- 13 to two just seems unfathomable to me given what the vote was by the public which said, we'd like you to make this reflect kind of the more, somewhat more Republican state that we are not 13 to two, which is certainly not at all reflective of that.

- Yeah and when you start thinking about how Ohio has three metropolitan areas, which a lot of states don't have three, we have three and the idea of packing all of Ohio's urban and suburban Democratic voters, 'cause that's where most of them live, into two districts is really kind of amazing.

But that's what these maps have done here.

And so I think, you know, watching the process unfold here and it's gonna have to unfold fairly quickly is gonna be really interesting.

(dramatic music) - Federal rules issued this week will make vaccines mandatory for up to a hundred million additional American workers.

What happens to those who refuse?

Karen challenges are expected with these mandates.

Ohio is already in that mix.

Attorney General Dave Yost has challenged the mandate for federal contractors saying it impacts public safety and would force Sheriff's departments to release immigration and customs enforcement detainees.

Is he also likely then to file or join a suit against the mandates for companies with a hundred or more employees?

- Oh yeah I think that's almost certain.

I mean, my Statehouse News Bureau colleague, Andy chow reported back in September that he was looking at the vaccine mandate.

And I think a lot of states had been waiting, A lot of Republican led states have been waiting on these actual rules before they filed any sort of legal action.

As you mentioned there are two parts of this.

There's the vaccine or test mandate on businesses and also the vaccine or test mandate on federal contractors.

And I think it's interesting when you look at the lawsuit that Yost filed , that specifically challenges the vaccine or tasked mandate on federal contractors, he brings up how county jails may have to release detainees for ICE because those jails are federal contractors.

These Sheriff's departments contract with the federal government to hold those detainees and that they're going to lose deputies because of this mandate and so there won't be enough people to operate the jails and these detainees would be released.

And I just, I think it's interesting to assume that that's what's going to happen.

I mean, certainly there was a vaccine mandate that was instituted in New York city and there was a huge expectation of thousands of police officers not accepting the vaccine.

And yet in the end, I think it was less than a hundred that didn't.

And so I don't know if this is for certain that if the vaccine mandate goes into place that certainly deputies, for instance, would walk off the job.

But it's something that Yost brings up as a concern in his lawsuit that also claims that the Biden administration does not have the authority to do this.

- Marlene, there are some health systems in Northeast, Ohio, Summa and MetroHealth that are already mandating vaccines to their employees.

We heard from MetroHealth this week about how that's going.

Mass majority vast majority.

- Vast majority.

- I know I'll get it.

Vast majority of people.

- [Marlene] (laughs) We'll erase that from the tape.

This isn't live.

- A lot of them.

- A lot, many, many of them have said okay, we got it and they showed proof.

There was very few, I think, just five who didn't show any proof at all.

And they are suspended and you know, if they don't show it in the next couple of weeks, they're in trouble.

But then there was like almost 500, more than 400, who said, we want an exemption.

So that's gonna be looked into.

What does that mean an exemption?

What are they looking at?

- Well some of it might be like a religious exemption or some kind of health exemption.

So they're gonna look at those case by case at those individuals.

And then you had about 12 like retired or something like that, so that they didn't have to take the vaccine.

But compared to the thousands of workers that they have at MetroHealth, I think it's like over 7,000.

That's a tiny fraction of the number.

So Karen is right.

There's a lot of huffing and puffing, and people saying I'm going to quit.

But then when it comes down to that decision moment, it appears that most people go along with it.

And Summa in Akron, Summa Health Care, similar story there, Summa had a mandate.

Then they reported their numbers in the 90% plus range of employees who went along and did get the vaccine.

And the interesting thing about the healthcare world and the mandate is a little bit different than the other 100 employer because the federal government controls a lot of dollars that go into hospitals.

Medicare and Medicaid are the biggest payers of all hospital systems.

So that's a big chunk of their cash, right?

So what the government is saying is if you do not get your employees vaccinated, we will take away our Medicare and Medicaid dollars from your facility and that's hospitals, that's nursing homes, that's, you know, all the artery systems that are part of the healthcare system.

And the difference also there is there's not going to be that opportunity for testing for hospital workers.

So you have to get the vaccine in the healthcare setting.

Whereas the other order around businesses larger than a hundred, there will be an option for testing there for weekly testing.

- That's a real interesting question.

I talked yesterday to an employment lawyer about that.

And the question was, who has to pay for that testing?

In this OSHA rule, it would be the person themselves would have to pay for it although it's still murky if it's an exemption, whether or not the employer would have to.

But you do have to provide them time off, you have to provide recovery time when this is something that ought to have been done if they have to do it now in an earlier time.

- It's gonna be very expensive.

Whoever foots the bills tt's gonna be very expensive.

If it's on the employee themselves, will they be able to afford that?

- Yeah this is still a matter of a great debate.

And this guy was saying his clients were all calling yesterday saying, Okay, what now?

And now that the rules are here, what are our obligations?

How do we handle this?

You know, what ought we to do?

So there's still a lot to be worked through.

(dramatic music) Children five to 11 are now getting COVID-19 vaccines.

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention authorized lower dosage pediatric vaccines earlier this week.

So Marlene, what are we hearing from parents?

- Well you know, Jenny Hamel checked into this and Anna Huntsman has been looking into it too and it's a mix.

We heard from a pediatrician this week that what he's hearing from the people who come in is there's this huge mistrust about vaccines out there that's been created around this hysteria around the COVID-19 vaccine.

And he's seeing it even start to reflect parents' feelings about other vaccines.

So he was a little pessimistic around whether a lot of parents were going to give their children the vaccine.

It's an individual decision.

It's hard to know exactly how it was going to play out.

But one would guess that if the parents themselves took the vaccine, they'd be more inclined to give it to their children in that hardcore group of people who are like, I'm not touching any COVID 19 vaccine.

Chances are, they're not gonna give it to their kids.

- Do you have some idea about what, why the FDA took so long to make this approval.

As a parent I've been waiting for this?

- Well, yeah, I know a lot of parents have.

But I think it's just their approval process itself.

It's a long process.

And if you think about it, this is a drug.

We want them to take their time when they're approving drugs.

And especially when we're talking about kids because they needed a different dose for kids.

So after they finished the trials in the adults then they started looking at children and testing out and trying to figure out which dosage.

And if you were to talk to the FDA officials, they would say, Hey, this is an accelerated timeline.

What are you talking about?

It usually takes us much longer to approve these drugs.

So we want them to be careful and take their time and they still make mistakes.

So I think that's basically it.

It's the process itself but I know many, many parents have been waiting for this news.

- And it will be a parental decision not a mandate.

I would say it's good that it's not a child's decision 'cause if you said needle or no needle, I think you're getting no needle.

- They're all turning it down.

Maybe if you give them a lollipop.

- Maybe, beforehand and the sticker afterward.

(dramatic music) The ribbon was cut this week for the Opportunity Corridor.

The long awaited project will connect I490 to University Circle.

But drivers will not be able to use the new road until next week.

Matt the project though, it's been a long time coming.

Will it live up to its promise?

I mean what is it?

Originally it was gonna be, hey we're gonna take a highway from 490 and just stretch it all the way to University Circle and everybody gets where they wanna go, is one of the thoughts.

Mayor stood against that, a number of people did as well.

And what we have now is described as a boulevard.

So how is that?

What will be different?

- Well, there's.

In theory, the people who use this this road will be largely workers in University Circle at the hospitals who are getting off the freeway from more affluent parts of the city or the suburbs, and traveling through the city on this road to go to work.

And so you know, there are lights, there's room to develop along the road.

The idea is that they should stop.

They should grab a coffee, maybe get a bite to eat, maybe go by the grocery store on their way home.

So having that kind of like controlled traffic flow gives people an opportunity to, you know, leave some of their dollars behind I guess you could say.

- And for the neighborhoods themselves, the idea of we call it forgotten triangle.

I mean nothing has been happening there.

So now there might be development and the development might specifically be jobs that people in the neighborhood can get to without having to drive from the hinterlands.

- Yeah, that's another hope.

I mean it'll be connected to all the neighborhoods around it.

The city's already planning to build their new police headquarters.

Along the Opportunity Corridor there's a trades training Institute that is, you know, planned for the Corridor that was originally going to include a cement plant.

And that's been that part of it's been killed because you know, a heavy industrial polluter doesn't exactly go with an Opportunity Corridor.

(dramatic music) - Halloween is over and the celebration of Diwali or the festival of lights has begun worldwide.

But Christmas lights also are starting to appear.

How soon is too soon to begin the holiday season.

And that's an argument that was waged across social media platforms this week.

The North Ridgeville Police Department brought to debate a Facebook post.

A humorous posts warning people not to put up decorations until after Thanksgiving.

It said it would be disorderly conduct if you did so.

And if everybody on your street did that could be some sort of, I can't remember what they called it, but something worse.

(Marlene laughs) So that's a really interesting point.

I see people that just sort of, the grinch is, they just go, ugh already.

- They can't stand it.

Well I gotta tell you Mike, in my house, Christmas has started already because I've been- - [Mike] Come on.

- Wait a minute, I've been watching hallmark Christmas movies since the summertime.

(laughs) - Christmas music.

That was another debate.

When should that start?

And people have already started listening to it.

- Never.

- Never?

- Never?

- The lights are okay but the music.

- I love Christmas music.

I can't wait.

- Karen, what's the ruling?

- Somebody said something on social media about the war on Christmas will end when Christmas stops it's illegal occupation of November.

(panelists laugh) And that's kind of the way I feel because this is November.

This is fall.

It's not Christmas time yet.

Let's give it a rest.

- Back when I worked at The Plain Dealer I had the opportunity to do a story once on a guy who left his Christmas decorations on year round on his house.

They were attached to his porch light.

So as long as the porch light was off, the switch was off, you didn't see Christmas, but every time he ordered a pizza, it was Christmas.

(panelists laugh) - [Marlene] Used to see people do that.

- I think Christmas lights.

- [Marlene] Go on Karen I'm sorry.

- I couldn't even stand Christmas.

I'd rather see Christmas extended into January when it's miserable - And when we need it.

- Rather than Christmas arriving early.

- Yeah we've got Thanksgiving.

- [Karen] We don't need Christmas then.

- That's a really good point Karen but a lot of people do leave them up all the way through January into February.

- Coming up Monday on the Sound of Ideas on 90.3 WCPN, in light of the state department's new gender X marker for U.S. passports, we'll talk to local residents who identify as non-binary or gender non-conforming to hear their personal experiences.

I'm Mike McIntyre.

Thank you so much for watching and stay safe.

(soft music)