(exciting music) - Akron Council passes the mayor's proposal for a police citizens review board.

Ohioans are lending a hand to help those in Florida impacted by the devastation from Hurricane Ian.

And Tim Ryan and JD Vance announced they will debate next month in Cleveland and in Youngstown.

"Ideas" is next.

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

I'm Glenn Forbes, in for Mike McIntyre.

Thanks for joining us.

Akron Council passed Mayor Dan Horrigan's proposal for a civilian police review board, but there are concerns this measure will confuse voters who will decide a similar citizen led ballot measure in November.

Ohio first responders, rescue units, volunteers, and utility workers are among those mobilizing to help those impacted by Hurricane Ian's destruction.

JD Vance and Tim Ryan will debate next month, once in Cleveland and once in Youngstown.

It's a race with high profile visibility and big money being poured into it.

And state lawmakers want to increase penalties for swatting, the practice of making prank calls to bring out a large emergency response.

A previously introduced bill gets new attention after several schools statewide received similar hoax calls on the same day.

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

Joining me this week from Ideastream Public Media, Akron-Canton reporter Anna Huntsman, and criminal justice reporter, Matt Richmond.

In Columbus, we have Andy Chow, our Ohio Public Radio State House News Bureau News Editor.

Let's get started.

Akron City Council this week passed Mayor Dan Horrigan's proposal to create a civilian police review board.

The vote on Mayor Horrigan's plan came just weeks after council approved a ballot measure on a citizens led push to create a civilian police review board, one that voters will decide on the November ballot.

Mayor Horrigan's proposal passed on a nine to four vote.

Some on council firmly behind Mayor Horrigan's plan, as we heard.

But Councilman Shammas Malik, he was part of the Charter Amendment movement, he was part of that group, so of course he was a no vote.

- He actually wasn't a no vote.

Yeah, he did vote for it because he said he would rather have this one than not have a civilian review board at all.

- Right, and the interesting thing is here, there are similarities.

- [Anna] For sure.

- And there's talk about kind of adapting the measures to kind of fit each other.

A lot of issues here, Anna, from police contracts to who appoints the board, who has true oversight of these boards, just sort this all out for us, if you can.

- Okay, and it's interesting that you keep saying the competing proposals, because a lot of council members are trying to say, and even the community members that I've talked to say that, they're not necessarily conflicting, they are just different.

And there are parts that are similar.

And the whole, I mean, so many people in the city want some sort of civilian review board, more independent oversight of police.

But the key here, one of the biggest differences is that the mayor's ordinance is an ordinance.

It is legislation that can be changed or tweaked.

In fact, one activist I talked to said, you know, if all of council gets, there's an election next year where the whole council could be new, they could decide they don't even want it anymore.

So the future, to a lot of people, is uncertain of that one.

Whereas the ballot measure, what people are voting on in November, would change the city's charter.

It is a charter amendment, so it would be codified essentially in the city's constitution.

And so it would, you know, outlast any new mayor, any new council.

So that's probably the biggest difference.

Now I will say the mayor's ordinance that was just passed has a target of putting a charter amendment on next November's ballot.

So it's not that that couldn't happen, but this one would be much quicker if people vote on it.

So, okay, that's the first big difference.

Another difference is how many people would be on the board.

So the one that was just passed is an 11 member board, as you mentioned, six picked by the mayor with the consent of council, the rest just by council.

With the charter amendment, that would be a nine member board and the mayor has way less influence of that one.

So it'd be three people picked in that case.

Yeah, go ahead.

- Well, so, it's hard enough, right?

For us to kind of keep this straight.

And you threw another little monkey wrench, I suppose, into this one because even in the mayor's proposal, there would be a future charter amendment.

- A target, a goal of getting a charter amendment on the ballot next year.

- So, you know, you cover this every day, you've got it pretty straight.

I cover it sparingly, I don't have it straight, but I know a fair amount about it, so how are voters supposed to keep this straight and what are the concerns that you're hearing from council members or from whoever about how voters are going to keep this straight?

Because we have an election coming up in six weeks.

- Right, I've been wanting to see how this is gonna play out because on the activist side, the ones who got the charter amendment on the ballot, they're pretty opposed to the mayor's ordinance because they say that it's kind of the mayor's voice, it's what the mayor wanted.

And so they have a big task in front of them to get the word out to voters about what they're voting for and why, you know, they should support this charter amendment.

So a lot of council members are concerned that people are gonna be confused by this.

I'm almost, you know, this hasn't happened yet, but I'm almost just thinking, is there gonna be a strategy from the people who don't like the charter amendment?

We haven't even talked about the opposition of the charter amendment, but is there gonna be a strategy to be like, "We already have a review board in place, why vote for this one?"

And it's like, well, it's a different process, you know, this one was proposed by council, all that stuff.

So yeah, a lot of people dislike the charter amendment because they say it could conflict with the city's contract with the police union and the specific language in there they say does that, is that the board could conduct investigations, which, you know, the police union, I believe says that's an internal thing that's, you know, the state and federal authorities handle investigations.

And for some clarity on that, Councilman Shammas Malik said, Well, investigations is a broad term.

Maybe that could be we investigate their traffic policy, you know, so research rather than, like, launching an investigation.

And there is language in the charter amendment that says if something conflicts, we can't do it.

So did that, is that confusing?

You're looking at me with confusion.

- We're getting it, I always look at you like that.

And then correct me if I'm wrong, 'cause I know you'll do that anyway, you always correct me.

I believe it was Councilman Lombardo, right?

Who said we've got enough police oversight already, saying, "Listen, they do internal investigations," which people can, you know, say whatever, but the state has their own investigative body, the Bureau of Criminal investigation.

And it was his point that's kind of like, how much more oversight do we need?

Is he concerned about kind of duplicating efforts?

I mean, what's his main concern here?

Basically he's saying there's already enough oversight of police.

- He's the sole council member who has publicly expressed that he thinks that there's enough oversight already.

So that's basically what he said.

He's essentially saying, "Why don't we trust the experts?

You know, this is their jurisdiction."

So a lot of council members kind of fought back and said, "Well, I mean, both proposals want someone who has law enforcement background to be on this."

(tense orchestral music) - Cleveland and its police department are seven years into a federal consent decree aimed at reforming policies and improving its relationship to the community.

But the city and the federal monitor overseeing the implementation of the consent decree have differing views on the progress that has been made since 2015.

Matt, the monitor overseeing the consent decree's implementation and the city, of course, differing views as we mentioned.

Characterize that for us, what are these differing views?

- Yeah, so it was kinda laid out in a hearing last week in a federal court in front of Judge Solomon Oliver who has the ultimate authority about when the city can be released from the consent decree.

And, you know, it was interesting 'cause the city, I think, focused on laying out a framework for how they can be, you know, measured as completing the consent decree.

So they came out with a lot of stats, said use of force is down, said engagement with the members of the public is up, that, you know, they're clearing investigations into officer misconduct.

It was a lot of numbers.

And they said, "Based on these measurements, we feel like we have met the broad goals of the consent decree."

And then the Department of Justice and the monitor get up and said, "Okay, you know, those are good numbers, they're making progress, no doubt about it, but they're missing sort of what's at the heart of the consent decree, that it's about repairing a relationship with the community."

And, you know, you could kind of hear the groans on the city side, basically, you know, how do we measure that relationship?

I mean, we could be here for 20 years before, you know, you say that we've repaired the relationship with the city.

We're trying to come up with real metrics to get us out of this.

And so for right now, you know, they're still a bit far apart on.

- So, is there anything else in terms of like, what else do they need to do to fulfill the consent decree?

I could understand where the city would be saying, "Well, that's kind of an ambiguous goal that you've set out, how exactly do we measure that?"

What are some of the other agreements or the disagreements about what is left to do, to fulfill the consent decree?

- Well, so they've started this phase of, you know, kind of oversight, or I'm not sure exactly how to, it's compliance checks by the monitor.

So the city's put all these new policies in and they've started to collect a lot more data than they used to.

And the monitoring team is looking at all of that kind of on a rolling basis, looking at use of force reports, looking at or, you know, hoping to soon look at the data that the city collects on the community engagement and saying, you know, so they looked at some use of force reports last year and they said, "Yeah, these reports show that officers are working on conflict reduction and trying to avoid serious use of force incidents, and then they're also filing reports on all," you know?

But then there are a lot of other things where the monitor said they still have a long way to go.

They're not providing information yet about kind of the nature of their community engagement.

So, you know, there's their community engagement teams in the police department that, you know, these officers, their main job is to go to community events and to visit with people and kind of be the face of the police department.

But the consent decree says that there has to be a component for all officers.

And you know, you'll hear that a lot of officers will show up at community centers on the weekend and just sort of like, stand in the back of the room and then leave, and then that's their community engagement.

- Not really, not very engaging.

- Right, so the monitors waiting to really dig into what the city is saying qualifies as community engagement, is one example.

- So Matt, ultimately, who makes this decision?

Is it Judge Oliver?

Is Judge Oliver looking for an agreement or a settlement I guess you would say in common court terms.

Who ultimately makes this decision of whether or not Cleveland can get out of the consent decree?

- Well, so yeah, I mean, that was one of the interesting things about the hearing last week is that, you know, the consent decree is a lawsuit that the Department of Justice filed against the city, and the consent decree is the agreement that sort of settles that lawsuit.

And so the other party, the Department of Justice, got up in court and said, "No, we don't think the city is as close to being done as they are trying to claim they are."

So then it goes Judge Oliver.

And what he said is, you know, "Yeah, I agree that there's still a lot of work needs to be done.

We don't wanna rush this.

But, you know, I also understand that a point may be coming pretty soon where there's not gonna be an agreement.

They're gonna have to come into court, kind of make their cases for why either they're ready to leave or why they're not.

And I, Judge Oliver, am gonna have to decide and I don't want it to end up that way, but that might be coming."

- Good, I wanna take you back to last year, the passage of issue 24, which is another, you know, police oversight measure that voters in Cleveland passed, the creation of a community police commission.

How does that impact the consent decree and where are we with issue 24 and what it's spelled out for the city?

(Matt and Glenn laugh) - So, you know, I think the community police commission is far from being ready to, you know, fulfill all the roles that that issue 24 gave it.

They, the mayor and city council, have conducted interviews of a finalist for the 11 positions on the board, sorry, it's 13 positions.

And you know, a while ago in the spring or early summer, Mayor Bibb said that he would send his 10 names to city council in July and that hasn't happened yet.

City Council has not produced their three names.

So they're waiting to see people on the commission.

And then recently the city put out a request for proposals for somebody who's gonna train the commissioners.

And that's a big deal because they have a lot of power.

They can do investigations, they can write police policy, they can formulate training or kind of approve the training that the department's using.

And these are just going to be, for the most part, just people have no experience in law enforcement and, you know, they need to learn a lot.

And so even once these commissioners are seated, there's going to be a long process of kind of getting the office up and running.

So, and then, it's not going to be overseen by the consent decree, it's not a part of the consent decree.

But there's, you know, because of all the authority that that body has over policies and everything that the consent decree does have a role in, it's hard, the monitor and the judge are gonna want see what that body's doing before the city is out of the consent decree.

(tense orchestral music) - Ohioans are on the move to help in Florida after the destruction caused by Hurricane Ian.

The massive storm came ashore Wednesday as a powerful category four storm, bringing winds in excess of 150 miles per hour, heavy rain, and a dangerous storm surge.

Andy, Ohioans are ready to move in and assist.

I believe there's a group that's already down there, 30, 40, nearly 50 I believe, and now another 36 are headed out there.

This Task Force 1 gets called up for help in many disasters, you know, who are they?

What do they do?

We've heard this name before, Ohio Task Force 1, give us some of the details.

- Sure, Ohio Task Force 1 is a collection of emergency responders, first responders who dedicate their time to go to natural disasters, to go to places where there's a state of emergency.

They take their trucks, their cars, their vehicles, their boats, and they are especially equipped for search and rescue operations.

So when you see video of people, hurricane victims who are stranded at their homes and on the streets or in everything like that, and you see the boats sort of swing by and pick them up, you can expect the Ohio Task Force 1 to possibly among those people who are helping in the search and rescue efforts.

And as we've seen, and like you said, these images and videos are just stunning.

And the fact that there are people out there, it's important to have these first responders out there to sort of help pick up with what's been left off with the damage.

And then afterwards, you have the search and rescue team sort of being the first line of defense, helping people, rescue people from where they might be stranded.

And then you have other people, other groups like the American Red Cross going in there for recovery efforts and helping those people, keep giving them shelter, giving them food and water and all those types of assistance.

- Another one of the, really, it's an inspiring picture in some ways, but, you know, a sad and kind of unfortunate picture in other ways.

All of the utility trucks that were lined up, I mean, there were hundreds of utility trucks as power outages are into the millions.

AEP, Andy, is sending crews to help as well, along with the American Red Cross, is that correct?

- Yeah, AEP sent more than 500 staff and employees down to Florida to help with the recovery efforts, to help bring people back online.

Duke Energy sent about 10,000 people who work in Ohio, Kentucky, and Indiana.

All of those people went down too.

These are crews, these are employees who work with tree management, they work on the lines, they work on other support systems.

As you can tell, with millions of people being out of power in Florida, it's important to have, it's a all hands on deck situation.

And I think, you know, it's a tragedy, but I think if you could look at one of the good things to come out of this is that it did seem like people were prepared.

The crews were sent down days ago, they were ready for this.

(tense orchestral music) - Two Ohio television stations will host debates with United States Senate candidates Tim Ryan and JD Vance.

The two will debate on October 10th, hosted by WJW Channel 8 in Cleveland.

They'll debate again on October 17th, hosted by WFMJ in Youngstown.

Andy, Two debates are two more than voters interested in the governor's race will get, apparently, but what about other debates that were potentially expected for Vance and Ryan.

Any chance that those get off the ground?

- Well, there was one more debate that the Ryan campaign had agreed to in Hamilton, so in the southwest part of Ohio, and there's been some talk of whether Vance had originally agreed to that or not.

This is near his hometown of Middleton, but the Vance campaign says no, they were never able to do the date that they were trying to do for WLWT in Hamilton and that Vance has several conflicts with that date.

So at this point, it looked like it could have been three debates, but it's gonna be at least two debates as we know right now.

And I think it really speaks to where the race is at right now.

Like you mentioned, Governor Mike DeWine, Governor Mike DeWine has said that he's not going to bait right now.

And I think that speaks to how well he thinks he's doing in the polls and how maybe he can, he feels comfortable in his race against Democratic candidate for Ohio Governor, Nan Whaley.

But when it comes to Tim Ryan and JD Vance, this race is polling a lot closer.

And I think both candidates believe that doing a debate could help them in the long run.

- Matt Richmond, the debate in Youngstown, that's Tim Ryan's backyard, that certainly is a highlight to how important the area is going to be in this race.

That region has voted Democrat in the past, but they also went for Donald Trump in 2016 and in 2020.

Tim Ryan keeps winning congressional seats there but this is, of course, a statewide race and of course, there'll be voting outside of his district.

But just, you know, the implications I suppose of that debate being held in Youngstown.

- Yeah, you know, the polling that we've seen is that he's doing better than the Democratic candidate for governor.

And I mean, he knows how to campaign in that part of the state.

And so, I think that that's something that gives him a real advantage.

(tense orchestral music) - Police last Friday responded to hoax active shooter calls at schools in Akron, Findlay, Springfield, Newark, Dayton, Toledo, and Cincinnati.

Law enforcement have determined that at least four of the hoax calls came from the same person.

Now, state lawmakers are taking action and want to increase the penalties on so-called swatting, making bogus reports to bring police.

Andy, what exactly would these bills specify?

- So these would increase the penalties for somebody who calls in a fake report like that.

It's currently a misdemeanor, but if you do call in a fake report to engage in what people call swatting, then it would become a third degree felony.

And if someone were to be seriously hurt because of the panic that ensues due to this fake report, this fake police call, then it would be a first degree felony.

Now, there are laws that exist right now against making these false reports, like I said, most of them are a misdemeanor.

If you call in a fake bomb threat, that raises to the level of being a felony.

But what the lawmakers want to do is they want to take on these internet hoaxes that have sort of been running rampant lately, and as we saw last week to several school districts in Ohio, and increase the penalties, thinking that if you increase the penalties, it might decrease the amount of times this happens.

- I would think the schools, for the most part, certainly would be supportive of this.

I mean, this is incredibly disrupting during the day.

Also, Andy, both sponsors are Republicans, but this might be one of those issues where they can get bipartisan support.

- Yeah, I think it will likely get at least a couple of Democrats, if not many of the Democrats on board.

I think, like you said, the schools are likely to be on board with something like this too.

What we're seeing in the school system, especially coming out of the pandemic, is just the idea of these different internet trends that require some sort of danger or violence or false reporting, they sort of run rampant through the schools.

And so to see legislators respond to this is probably gonna be welcomed by the school districts.

(tense orchestral music) - Let's talk a bit about LeBron James as basketball season's getting underway, but of course, he does a lot for the Akron and Canton area.

Another assist here for the LeBron James Family Foundation, a partnership with Stark State College announced this week.

Graduates or parents of students of James I Promise School now able to attend Stark State for up to two years tuition free.

The school has campuses in Canton, North Canton, and Akron.

They say this will bridge the gap between grants a student earns, and these are the kind of the last dollar costs.

They're making up for anything that these grants and other scholarships does not cover.

Anna, the James Family Foundation making a big educational splash in Akron.

I see that, you know, in the release, there's partnerships with both Kent State and Akron, but not all students that go to I Promise might want to go to a four year university so this is about a two year associates degree, work training, things of that nature.

- Right, and so I am from Canton, my dad is a Stark State grad.

So Stark State has traditionally been that career technical education for folks who, again, might not be pursuing a four year degree, but they wanna get into those workforce jobs that are in great demand right now.

And so, you know, for kids who might see themselves as wanting that sort of thing, this is a great opportunity for them to go and get their two year degree.

But there's also some, I guess you could call 'em wraparound services as well.

So financial literacy training, so if you do wanna, you have your associates, you wanna continue on and get two more years in, you can talk with someone to help figure out how that can work financially for you.

Tutoring services as well.

And obviously the cool thing here too is, parents, if they're interested, can also participate in this tuition free program.

And so it's kind of helping with that generational problem or that challenge that some families might be facing where, you know, college degree or that two year education can, not having it can really hold you back.

- Yeah, I believe two parents or guardians would be covered per student there at the I Promise School.

Also wanna mention LeBron James getting into pickleball.

LeBron, Kevin Love, and Draymond Green, part of an ownership for Major League Pickleball.

I did not know that that existed.

I've played pickleball before, but you know, who knows?

Hopefully Draymond can keep his hands and feet to himself.

(reporters chuckle) All right, all right.

(tense orchestral music) Browns star defensive end Myles Garrett received a citation from the Ohio Highway Patrol in connection with a single car crash earlier this week.

Garrett flipped his Porsche in Medina County near Wadsworth.

The patrol says the vehicle flipped several times after going off the right side of the road.

We were talking about just the pictures of that car, pretty incredible, and for both Myles and his passenger to walk away.

Myles has a strained shoulder, strained bicep.

- [Anna] But to walk away?

- Yeah, they walked away.

- Pretty remarkable that they were, neither one of them were not more seriously injured.

- Yeah, it looks like it was awful.

That was a rainy day too, right?

So the roads were probably slick.

- Yeah, wet roadway was the report and things of that nature.

But you know, thankfully he is okay.

We also wanna mention the Guardians.

They clinched the Central Division on Sunday.

Major League Baseball Post Season begins Friday.

The very young first year Cleveland Guardians, younger than many Triple A teams, in fact, their average age younger than AAA teams defying all the expectations.

The team the youngest in the major leagues, younger than AAA clubs, as I mentioned, this was unexpected.

The Chicago White Sox were supposed to run away with this division, but the Guardians prove once again that they don't need a big payroll.

They just need Terry Francona, that talented scouting department, and of course, the fine players.

- Well, and there's that camaraderie of the team.

They're just a fun team to watch.

They always are joking with each other, you know, being on social media.

But speaking of social media, the Guardians social media accounts tweeted this.

They edited a video of all the news reports at the very beginning of the season that were saying the predictions, and Guardians at the bottom, Guardians at the bottom, you know, these really negative things.

And then they were like, "We kept the receipts."

I just thought that was awesome.

- That's the kind of spite I can get behind.

I enjoy that level of petty, I enjoy that level of spite.

Monday on "The Sound of Ideas" on WKSU, we bring you the most recent community conversation presented in partnership with the United Way of Greater Cleveland.

The conversation focused on voting rights, redistricting, and the impact on voter turnout.

I'm Glenn Forbes in for Mike McIntyre.

Thanks for watching.

(bright music)