- Protests follow a special grand jury decision in Akron.

Mayor Justin Bibb says public safety is his top priority, and state lawmakers move closer to making it harder to amend the state's constitution.

"Ideas" is next.

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

I'm Marlene Harris-Taylor in for Mike McIntyre.

Thanks for joining us.

Demonstrators are demanding "Justice for Jayland" in Akron this week following a special grand jury's decision to not indict the eight police officers involved in the deadly shooting of Walker last summer.

Cleveland Mayor Justin Bibb says public safety is his biggest priority.

Bibb delivered his second state of the city speech this week.

Republican lawmakers are moving closer to putting a ballot measure before voters that would increase the threshold of support needed to amend the state's constitution.

The vote would be scheduled for August, even though lawmakers just passed a bill that largely ends special elections in August, due to cost and low turnout.

And the state's budget is still taking shape.

One item on the Ohio House proposal would put tens of millions towards a plan to create a land bridge connecting downtown Cleveland to the lakefront.

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

Joining me this week from Idea Stream Public Media Deputy Editor for News, Andrew Meyer and Cleveland based politics reporter Abbey Marshall.

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

Let's get ready to round table.

Protests took place in Akron several nights this week.

The demonstrations came after a special grand jury returned a "no-bill" against eight Akron police officers who shot and killed Jayland Walker last June.

So Andrew, what do we know about Wednesday's protest and why did police use the pepper spray and the tear gas?

- Well, if we're going back to Wednesday night, we should state that that protest that took place in West Akron began and was a peaceful protest.

Started out with about 50 people, grew to about 150 people.

Went on for about an hour and a half before police then arrived on the scene.

They hadn't even been present.

And suddenly you had a convoy, a caravan of, I would say, about a dozen police cars, both from Akron Police and from Summit County Sheriffs who showed up and they confronted the protestors and they said, "You're going to have to disperse."

And without much notice, they declared an unlawful assembly.

And then that's when things really went downhill.

It'd been peaceful up to that point.

There were families there, there were kids there.

It was, I think, the best you could see in democracy in action.

It was civil protest, but it was peaceful.

- That's interesting.

Do we have any idea why the police showed up?

- We don't at this point.

And that is despite repeated request from the mayor's office for, from the police department to get some explanation of what happened and why this happened.

All we have so far is a statement which Akron Police Chief Steve Mylett put out yesterday, which essentially says, "Before I can explain what happened, I need to be sure of the timeline of events."

- 'Cause there are, because there is some dispute over the timeline of events, right?

- There is much dispute over what happened on Wednesday.

You know, what was being relayed at the scene was that the police had to clear the roadway so emergency vehicles could get through.

Now we had one of our reporters there with a drone who sent the drone up and was able to get some aerial perspective of the scene.

The protest was about a block long.

It was blocking about a block's worth of a two-lane road in the area.

So, you know, I would like to hear more from the chief, from the Akron police about what the concerns were about emergency vehicles not being able to get through.

- Our reporters were tear-gassed.

- They were, and to be clear, the police are saying, "Well, we gotta clear the roadway, we gotta get the protestors out of the road."

Our reporters were on the sidewalks on either side of the street.

They were not in the street, they were not in the way.

They were clearly identified as press.

In fact, one of our reporters was saying, "I'm press, I'm press."

And yet, they were still sprayed with tear gas, dead on.

He's got video of that.

And he was even physically handled by one of the officers at the time.

- In fact, you could hear it on the audio.

- [Andrew] You can hear it on the audio.

- Him saying, "I'm press, I'm press."

I heard that on the audio.

Is there any chance, Andrew, that our reporter saw it from one perspective and maybe if they had been, you know, in a different spot of the protest, maybe they would've seen something different or captured something different?

- I think you can certainly make that argument that they can't be everywhere all the time.

But this was a contained area where this took place.

Again, going back to the footage that we got from the drones, the photos that one of our reporters took, this was all within a very tight area where this took place, about a block.

This was not going over blocks and blocks and blocks.

And also when the police approached the scene, they came in from one direction.

So it's not like they were converging and circling the protest scene.

So, they could see a direct line of sight of what was happening.

And to the best of their vision, with the documentation they got from both photos and video, there was no indication that they had that any plastic bottles, these are plastic water bottles were thrown prior to the tear gas being unleashed on the protestors.

- So we don't know when we will hear from the chief on that?

No indication?

- We will hear when he has gathered his information, and in this statement he says, "If we made mistakes, we will improve upon them.

And if the officer's actions were reasonable, we would share that information as well."

So I'm, we're waiting to hear.

- What about the mayor, Dan Horrigan?

Have we heard anything from the mayor?

- We heard from the mayor 5:30 Monday, the day the grand jury decision was released, had a press conference at the Water Reclamation Facility in Akron, which is outside the downtown area.

The chief was there, called for calm.

But since then, we have not heard from the mayor, nor have we, really, heard much from the mayor's representatives in his office.

- What about the faith community in Akron?

I know initially they were out front after the decision was announced that there would be no indictment, calling for peace and calm.

Where are they at this point?

- Actually, before and after they held a prayer vigil in the designated protest zone last week, last Tuesday.

There were 15 of them, so it was a very small gathering, but they were there to pray for the city.

And they were back again this Tuesday.

The number had grown slightly.

They were there to pray again for the city and prayed for the buildings.

I don't have the exact statement in front of me, but our reporter who was covering got a quote from one of the pastors who was there saying, "We are here to pray for these buildings.

We recognize the city has a sickness."

This is paraphrasing, "and we're praying for it to get well."

- What about the civilian review board?

This review board was created after the shooting, the people in Akron voted for it.

And this will be really the first issue that that civilian review, I can't say review today, that civilian review board will take on.

- I think many people fully expected that this would be the first issue that the Civilian Oversight Review Board was going to have to deal with.

Issue 10 was passed by 62% of the voters in Akron.

It was a direct reaction to what happened to Jayland Walker.

For the review board itself, now the question is what is their path forward?

Because now that the Attorney General has finished their investigation presented to the grand jury, and there has been a "no-bill" returned, which is lingo for no indictment to any of the officers involved, the next step is for Akron Police to do internal reviews of that.

Then comes the Akron oversight board to step in and see how they fit into the puzzle.

They're not sure at this point, they're watching.

- So they're still, so obviously there's still gonna be lots of examination of what happened, even though there was no indictment, Abbey?

- Yeah, the Akron Beacon Journal reported a day after the indictment or the "no-bill" saying they weren't gonna indict.

Officers came out saying that Mylett said that there was nothing jumping out as being a violation of police policy.

So, that's kind of a preliminary answer.

He didn't rule it out totally.

But that's kind of where we're at, and ultimately, at the end of the day, the only person that can implement discipline is the police chief.

So while the oversight board can independently direct the police auditor and they can review policies and make recommendations, they cannot actually discipline.

That is up to Mylett.

- And I thought what was interesting about that, in talking about the next steps and internal reviews of policy and procedures, not necessarily of the eight officers actions who were involved in the killing of Jayland Walker.

So, there are limits to what they're going to look at.

I think they'll consider whether or not those eight followed procedures.

But it really seemed more a matter of, well, what do we have to change in terms of how we as a department work, right?

- Well, you know, we haven't heard yet what the outcome is gonna be or what the chief is gonna say about how this protest was handled.

But on the grand jury's decision itself, there was a lot of transparency.

There were so many documents released for the public to look at, to scrutinize how they came to this decision.

- Thousands of pages.

It is overwhelming.

We have been digging through this all week, and it's going to take us weeks to get through this.

Now the AGs office will say it's transparency.

We're sharing everything that we developed as part of the bureau criminal investigation.

BCI investigation.

We're turning it all over so that the public, the media can go through it and see what we had.

But there are some who have said, "Well, you call it transparency, but it's also potentially obfuscation by just dumping an immeasurable amount of data on us that is impossible to go through."

- Well, as you said, it will take a while.

It'll take weeks and weeks.

- It is, it is.

There's a lot to pour through.

We have been through the, basically the summary, the investigatory report, which is 227 pages.

There are interviews with all of the officers.

There's personnel records, there's body cam footage, not just from the eight officers, but a number of other officers who were responding at the time.

There's video, there's audio interviews, there's a lot of investigation there into, actually, just Jayland Walker himself.

Which raises some questions and concerns about re-traumatizing the family because they're looking into, they're really trying to answer the question about the state of mind of Jayland Walker on that night.

- Yeah.

That seems to be the big question, right?

I mean, there's really no way to get a full answer.

But he had, you know, no prior run-ins with the law.

This is not a person who, you know, law enforcement was familiar with.

He had no records.

- [Andrew] Exactly.

But apparently he was going through some emotional things.

- He was going through some tough times.

He had lost his fiancee, died in a car accident.

He had been, I mean, I don't wanna get into it because I feel like at a certain point it's invasive to the family itself.

But this is a man who was dealing with some struggles.

- And Abbey, how's the family feeling right now?

Because they've had some objections to how he's been portrayed in the media.

- Sure, the family has been notoriously wanting to be out of media attention.

Pam Walker, she didn't ask to be the face of, you know, the next black man to be killed by police.

This was just her son.

Didn't wanna be the face of this national movement.

So, she usually doesn't make a lot of media appearances.

But on the day of the no-bill, her and her attorney, Bobby DiCello, that represents the family, made an appearance at a temple.

And they had a discussion and DiCello was pretty critical of portrayals of Jayland, but also the protestors.

When you talk about the city boarding up windows as a preemptive response, creating this designated zone, it seemed to imply that the city had an expectation of how things would go.

- Yeah, it made some people think that maybe things had been leaked in terms of the outcome with all this preparation going on beforehand.

- And it comes down to, I think, creating and feeding into an air of mistrust when it comes to how the community views the process.

A lot of people who, the family member, the attorneys, they worried that, I wouldn't say the fix was in, but that it was pretty much a foregone conclusion that the grand jury was not going to come back with any indictments against any of the officers.

So you see things like the barricades going up, the boarding up of windows going up, schools being canceled, businesses closing ahead of the grand jury decision.

An indication that whether it was accurate or not, that people knew already what was going to happen.

(dramatic music) - Republicans in the State House are moving closer to putting a issue on the August special election ballot that would make it harder for voters to pass amendments to the state's Constitution.

Supporters want to raise the threshold for passing amendments to 60% from the current 50% plus one vote.

So Karen, not only do lawmakers in both chambers have to pass a resolution to put the Special amendment change on the ballot, they also have to pass a bill to hold the August special election anyway.

Since lawmakers just passed a bill moving away from the August elections due to cost and low turnout.

- There is this appearance that, this is going back on what these Republicans said just a few months ago about the cost and the turnout and the concerns about August special elections.

But of course, the issue of this reproductive rights amendment is so critical.

Some of them have been very blunt.

I mean, Senate President Matt Huffman has said that, "Yeah, it would cost $20 million, but if $20 million is the cost to," as he put it, "save lives," then that's a cost that he's willing to bear.

- So the House is the wild card here, right?

Because they have to do it in the Senate and the House, but there's this power struggle with the Republicans in the house, right?

- Yeah, but I think most Republicans in the House have said that they are on board with this idea.

It does take a three fifths majority.

So there could be, if there are enough defectors, potentially this might not go forward.

You need a three fifths majority in the House and Senate to put this before voters.

You don't need the governor's signature to put this before voters, the 60% threshold.

The governor does need to sign a bill that would create an August special election.

And so that's a question I think that's out there as well.

Would Governor Mike DeWine sign this bill to create this August special election for this particular reason, when he just signed a bill earlier this year that eliminated August special elections under most circumstances?

- And do we have any indication where he stands right now?

- He has not talked about it.

Typically, he doesn't talk about legislation as it's going through, but he has occasionally broken that rule.

So I'll be interested.

We keep asking him, but so far we haven't heard yet.

- Now, they have a limited amount of time to get this done, right?

- Right.

Secretary of State, Frank LaRose, who by the way, does support raising the threshold to 60%, sent legislative leaders a letter last weekend saying, you have until May 10th to work this out because boards of elections need at least a hundred days to get everything together to go ahead with a statewide election that they weren't planning for.

And I'm hearing that boards of elections around the state are saying, we don't want this August special election.

We're not ready for this.

We didn't plan for it.

This is a year where it was not expected.

And so there's been pushback now at least privately from boards of elections around the state saying, this is not something that we wanna see happen.

And so that again, is one of the questions that remains out there is, are legislators gonna go ahead and pass this August special election bill?

And would Governor Mike DeWine sign it?

Knowing, not only do you have all these groups that are opposed to raising the threshold in this August election, but you do have boards of elections who are saying, we don't want this August election at all.

- Andrew, did you wanna jump in on this?

- Yeah, I'm just thinking back to last August when we had our last special election and what the turnout was then, what was it, Karen?

It was 8%?

- [Karen] 7.9%.

- Yeah, yeah.

I think I was one of about a dozen people who showed up in my precinct.

Yes.

I actually voted, but it was pathetic.

And, but seriously, what does that mean though, if this actually goes through, about who could be making the decision ultimately on whether this is up or down on this?

- And we've asked about that.

And in fact, on the Senate floor, when this issue was debated, it was brought up and the folks who are pushing this have maintained that, "Hey, this August special election will be different than that one (Andrew snorts) because (Marlene laughing) there'll be a lot of attention on this 60% threshold issue.

- [Marlene] You made Andrew laugh on that one.

- I know, and honestly, it's funny to me too, in a sad way because I just don't think people will be paying attention.

I mean, it's August, people are on vacation.

People are not tuned in to political news at that point, especially in what is considered an off year election.

Because this is a year where municipal races are decided for the most part, and not statewide or federal offices.

So I really doubt that they're going to be a huge turnout in August if this goes forward.

And I even ask Senate President Matt Huffman, well, if this does go forward and it fails, what are you gonna do then?

And he said, the plan is that there are no other legislative tricks, so to speak, in place.

The, if this fails in August and the reproductive rights folks get their amendment on the ballot in November, then yeah, it would go forward in November.

(dramatic music) - Ohio House lawmakers have added into their budget proposal funding for a land bridge to connect Cleveland's downtown mall to the lakefront and Browns Stadium.

So I'm gonna start with you, Abbey.

The land bridge idea is one that first came from the Browns owners in 2021.

The Haslams are big proponents of the, of connecting downtown with this land bridge.

- Yeah, and it totally makes sense when you think about the Browns Stadium, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

All are really big attractions for people that live here, but also tourists.

But, there's not really an easy way to get there from downtown, especially if you're talking about tourists coming, staying in hotels.

You, like you mentioned, there's the big Shoreway, highway and railroad tracks to cross.

So, it makes sense to have a connected downtown to the lakefront.

And this has really been, which I'm sure we'll talk about later, a big point of Mayor Bibb's plan to have lakefront accessibility and development and connectedness.

When we talk about sustainability and economic development regarding the lakefront, they all need to go hand-in-hand.

That's how you're going to see a growth in economic development.

And you think about places like the Burke Airport, which takes up a massive amount of space on the lakefront, but you've got those clunky fences, kind of, blocking it off.

So this is a way to engage people, not only residents that live here, but tourism was a big thing that Bibb talked about when it comes to the lakefront.

So, it's something that makes sense.

And also in that bill, I wanna point out that there was a proposal in there that the state lawmakers would use $5 million in their American rescue plan, pandemic relief spending for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, which would also be used to create more outdoor spaces and lakefront accessibility.

- So it's fantastic to see that there's some plans actually coming together 'cause this lakefront renovation, this has been a perpetual conversation in Cleveland, right Abbey?

- Yeah, I think that this is something that's been talked about for a long time and now that we have, also, a mayor that's really on board in making this a top priority that is kind of pushing that to keep going.

- So Andrew, the proposal came to light just as other reporting, there was other reporting on future renovations to the Browns Stadium, when this proposal came out.

- To the Browns Stadium, yes.

And it's renovations, not a new stadium.

This is reported by the blog NEOtrans, which said that really, it seemed that a new facility was just a non-starter, the price tag would be 2 to $3 billion.

It was gonna be a hard sell.

So, now the idea is to pretty much rebuild the stadium.

whatever it's going to be named in the future, now that it's no longer First Energy Stadium.

- There's some names floating right though?

- There is, yeah.

I think the Marlene Harris-Taylor Stadium.

Is that it?

- Hmm.

That's an idea.

- [Abbey] You got a couple million?

- Top to bottom.

But I, you know, one of the most interesting takeaways from this, and I think there are a lot of details that still need to be worked out between the Haslams, between the Bibb administration, between County Executive Chris Ronayne's administration, is this massive renovation might require the Browns playing someplace else for the few years that this is going on.

And I'm not just talking about someplace else in Cleveland.

Columbus?

Really?

The Brown's kind of- - Is that what's being floated?

Columbus?

- Yeah.

That is an idea that's out there.

It's mentioned in this blog post and, you know, Clevelanders don't have to go that far back to remember the last time they lost the Browns, right?

Even a temporary replacement may not sit that well with people who love the Browns.

- I was thinking about that.

It might bring back some trauma.

- [Andrew] It might.

- For some Cleveland sports fans to think, oh no, that this might be, like, a way of, kind of, slowly moving outta town.

So, I understand the Browns and the owners, they're not happy with the way this is being reported in the media.

- No, they're not.

You know, again, the blog post had reported that there could be an announcement sometime in the next week or so.

We're not really hearing anything at this point about anything definitive, one way or the other.

(dramatic music) - The development of the lake and riverfronts in Cleveland formed a component of Mayor Justin Bibbs state of the city speech.

Bibb delivered the speech at East Technical High School.

Understand it was well attended?

- Yeah, and out front there was the John Marshall marching band, tooting their horns and banging on their drums, welcoming people in.

We were in the auditorium where the Cleveland School of Arts choir serenaded the crowd ahead and the principles of the school as well as a 16 year old high school junior introduced Mayor Bibb and all signs were, kind of, pointing to education as being a top priority.

This was something that he didn't really talk a lot about at his last state of the city address, but seems to be something that he is looking ahead to, especially as the district looks to replacing the superintendent.

- Hmm, well that's a change 'cause, you know, sometimes these state of the city things can be a little dry.

So that's kind of cool that he had, kind of, a festive atmosphere going on there.

But, when he started talking about his priorities, public safety was front and center.

- Yeah.

He said public safety was his top priority.

And, you know, like the rest of the country, Cleveland is short staffed with officers.

The city is down more than 200 officers and that's even after the budget slashed 140 some positions that were vacant.

And there are another 285 officers eligible for retirement and only 13 cadets in the current class of training.

So we're facing a very overtaxed police force, which has been a concern for council members and for the mayor, especially when we talk about gun violence in the city, which is something he talked a lot about.

As well as the federal consent decree that the city is under for police policy.

So beyond that, he talked a lot about violence prevention, saying that law enforcement is only part of the equation.

And he really touted this plan that he has using some of the remaining pandemic relief funds to create an endowment fund that would invest in violence prevention tactics in community for decades to come.

To kind of look at that root cause of violence and stop it from happening in the first place instead of having a reactive police force.

- I think that's really interesting 'cause many cities have looked at how, and they're dealing with the same problem about violence in their cities.

And they're putting it towards - It's not just a Cleveland problem, you're right.

- violence prevention.

You know, Akron looked to use some of its ARPA funding for violence prevention, but this seems to be a novel idea, creating a violence prevention fund, something that we will be digging much more into as it develops.

- Yeah, absolutely.

Because many of the violence prevention efforts to this time, they've had to rely on grants and there hasn't been a lot of continuity, so it could be a game changer.

But just like the governor has to work with the legislature, he has to work with council.

- Yeah, absolutely.

And in this final round of pandemic relief spending, American Rescue Plan Act, ARPA, as we call it.

That was presented to council this week, formally and in legislation.

But last week he presented the plan and had negotiations with Council President Blaine Griffin, who now is on board after a few tweaks to that plan.

(dramatic music) - Monday on "The Sound of Ideas" on WKSU, we'll talk to the Director of Case Western Reserve University's Environmental Law Clinic about the legal help they're providing people in East Palestine as a result of February's train derailment.

I'm Marlene Harris-Taylor in for Mike McIntyre.

Thanks for watching.

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