A federal monitor overseeing reforms in the Cleveland Division of Police, expressed concerns about racial disparities in traffic stops.

The Cleveland School Board unanimously approved a massive downsizing and reorganization of the district.

And if you want to see the Nela Park holiday lights, fill up your gas tank.

Ideas is next.

Hello and welcome to ideas.

I'm Mike McIntyre.

Thank you for joining us.

Cleveland has made progress in a number of areas, and a consent decree had entered a decade ago with the U.S.

Department of Justice.

But the federal monitor tracking the progress of the reforms has raised concerns about the disproportionate number of traffic stops of black drivers compared to other races.

The Cleveland Metropolitan School District Board of Education unanimously approved the district's consolidation plan, which will result in 29 fewer schools and a number of vacated buildings.

New marijuana regulations, plus a ban on intoxicating hemp products, is headed to the governor for his signature.

And Nela Park isn't lit up anymore.

Just a big Christmas tree there.

But you can still see the dazzling lights.

Just get on the car and drive.

Joining me to discuss these stories and more from ideas and public media education reporter Connor Morris and environment reporter Zachariah Johnson in Columbus.

Statehouse News Bureau chief Karen Kasler let's get ready to round table a new assessment from the federal monitor overseeing Cleveland's implementation of the consent decree with the U.S.

Department of Justice found that police stop black drivers disproportionately more than drivers of other races.

The city has been under the consent decree for a decade, after being found to engage in a pattern and practice of excessive force, violating constitutional rights.

Zaria, let's go through first what the monitor Kristine Cole, wrote in the report.

What were the findings?

I know, I hear it's like four, almost four times as likely to be stopped, but how did she lay that out?

Yeah.

So she said that, black drivers are stopped nearly twice as often by police officers than you would expect based on the number of black drivers that are actually on the road.

So she said, black drivers make up about 62% of traffic stops, but only about 32% of drivers.

And as a comparison, white drivers make up 31% of traffic stops, but about 60% of drivers.

So based on these numbers, that's where we get that 3.7 times more likely.

Black drivers are 3.7 times more likely.

Excuse me, than white drivers to be stopped by Cleveland police.

But they're also more likely to be searched and more likely to be arrested.

The report did mention that they're, oftentimes being stopped for things like speeding or, excessive window tint, but, police officers are also using that probable cause for arrest as a reason to stop these drivers.

And that does lead to often, searches and seizures of, these black drivers.

And there's also a handful of cases that, show that, the driver's ethnicity or race or gender could play a role in the officer stopping them to begin with.

Yeah, there's a small percentage, I think, that, she said.

But the question then becomes, if you're disproportionately stopping black drivers, is it because you're seeing black drivers and wanting to stop them because you think they might be up to no good?

Or is it because the person who's driving is speeding and whether they're white or black?

And so that's what we get into to try to.

And that's going to take a whole lot more analysis.

But what the city says is we hired an independent consultant last year, by the way.

They haven't released the report exactly, but they did have a press conference with this Harvard professor.

I think it was in October who said, no, I don't see any bias at all.

Yeah.

And they haven't put that report out yet.

So we have we don't have like the data to compare directly to what the monitor is saying.

But the they based their analysis on whether black drivers are pulled over more often and how often those, those cases involve any sort of, like illegal contraband that might have been on the driver.

But until we see those actual findings, it's hard to say who's right and who's wrong in this situation.

It's interesting, though, because the city is saying this is not any information we didn't know, but it doesn't mean what you don't jump to a conclusion based on looking at it.

Yeah.

And, the city has, made some like, significant progress when it comes to different elements of its police reform.

The monitor particularly called out the search and seizure reform, saying that they've, that a lot of good work in that area.

There's also some trainings and in areas like use of force, crisis intervention and officer accountability that they've made progress on.

But the monitor is basically saying that there's more work that needs to be done before the consent decree is over to make sure that we're heading in a positive direction.

And that's an interesting point, because the city has been making the case now for more than a year.

Hey, we should be out of this thing.

It's been a decade.

We did a bunch of stuff.

Look at all the progress.

And now what we see is a monitor, a new monitor who comes in and says, yeah, you made progress here, but wait a minute, what about this?

Yeah.

And I think that's the the sticking point at this point like you mentioned, like if, if there's just a disproportionate amount of stops for black drivers, is it a cause for concern or is there some sort of relation to, to actual, crime and arrest that that city needs to continue to address?

So we'll have to see when we get that report from October, we'll be able to get a clearer picture of what's actually going on.

Cleveland Metropolitan School District this week voted unanimously to greenlight a massive reorganization that will reduce the number of schools by a third.

The district said the changes are needed because of a steady enrollment decline.

When you reported the consolidation plan, it was a fait accompli.

We just needed to then get the approval of the Board of Education.

It was unanimous.

And what are we going to see now?

Sure, it's going to be there's a lot that needs to happen.

So, you know, notices are going out to families of special education students this month.

Like, where can we put you?

Where do you want to go?

There's specific settings that these students need to be in.

Sometimes like a small group room or just a solo classroom.

So that's going to take a lot of planning.

New bus routes, these schools that are closing are going to be merged with others.

So the staff are going to go new places.

Students are going to.

It's an open enrollment district.

But students, the district says, well, we'd like for this you all to go to one school so that you all are with your peers, but folks can really choose where they want to go.

So there's going to be so much that needs to happen.

The district already has announced, 24 principals at some of these closed schools are, you know, you're not going to have your job anymore, but they say it's not a layoff.

It's a displacement.

You can maybe find somewhere else for you to work in.

The district might be as an assistant principal or something else like that, or a dean.

And what we're really looking for coming up here is what's going to happen with teachers and other staff, because the district says, we've got this whole period of enrollment where students and families can choose which schools they want to go to.

That's from January to February.

Once they know how many kids are going to be going to schools, then they're going to determine staffing.

So in this intermediate time, there's going to be a lot of uncertainty.

There's a lot of anxiety.

We're hearing from folks.

There's choices then that parents and students can make.

But also there's choices that teachers can make in the union.

There's concern not only about lost jobs because there are fewer schools, but lost jobs because teachers are going to decide to to bag it because of this.

Yeah.

The teachers union president, Sherry Rescue, told me attrition could be happening.

You know, folks moving out of the district or, you know, in some cases, the teachers might say, well, I don't like where the district is going to place me.

I'm going to apply for a job elsewhere, actually talk to a teacher who told me that, so that very much so it could be a reality, teachers leaving because they've been at their school for a decade or more and they're like, well, I love it here.

I really don't want to go somewhere else.

So I might just take my fate into my own hands and maybe go to a different school district.

For school district, there are a lot of charters and private options as well, so there are a lot of hard choices coming.

I also heard from that same teacher that some teachers with, seniority who have been there for a long time, they're choosing to retire instead, you know, to say this is probably the time for me to do it.

I this is change is hard.

Might be a little too hard for me.

Also, this might preserve some jobs for some younger, less senior teachers.

Who might be the first to go under a union contract?

It seems like it will be awfully hard to for students, especially those who have been going to a school for a certain amount of time.

First of all, it's just that perhaps the travel.

Yeah.

Secondly, it's, you know, if you were at Glenville and now you're going to Collinwood and the two of you were combining and you were, and you were bitter rivals.

Yeah.

There is that kind of, issue, but also special ed students.

And that's one thing we we heard specifically from parents on the West Side in the last couple of weeks, is that what's the plan for for special education?

There's been a lot of concern about that.

And folks are arguing that the district really doesn't have a good plan for it.

The district says, well, this is an evolving process, and we are going to get families to exactly where they need to be, and we're going to work with you that all through that process.

And on the point of consistency, I mean, yeah, in education, consistency is really key.

There are studies that suggest that transitions like this are tough for kids, especially kids with special needs who have learning disabilities or or other disabilities, like autism, for example.

So this is going to be a challenging time for a lot of people.

But the district says we need to do this.

You know, if you really look at the statistics for urban education, for Ksd, these kids are really struggling.

I mean, for in third grade, just a third of kids are proficient in English and math.

On the state test.

There are some issues with state testing, of course, that a lot of educators say.

But and this doesn't really necessarily get better as kids get older as well.

There are about half of students are chronically absent, so they're missing a lot of school.

This is not just a CMS issue, but the district is saying, look, we want to make sure that there is a lot of good programing at every single school.

And right now that's not necessarily the case.

There are these college and career pathways that the district talks a lot about.

And those are, you know, where students can get prepared for a career in like medicine or the arts and a lot of urban schools are doing this nowadays, and they're saying some of our high schools just don't have this at all.

And we really want these kids to be prepared for a, a good future, you know, a career or college.

That's interesting to me because one of the things we did is put a lot of eggs in these specialty school baskets.

Yes.

And you can if you go to that school, you're going to come out ready for a career in science or a career in the arts.

But if you go to, you know, for lack of a better word, some ordinary school, you're not going to get that.

What they're doing now is, is it just kind of spreading the peanut butter more thinly so that everybody gets access to something?

Yeah.

And the idea is that it's there's fewer schools.

So then they can concentrate those resources a little bit more.

And we've done some reporting on this.

And when we looked at the records and, you know, there are schools that, you know, they've just got the bare minimum of maybe a couple sports, you know, maybe a couple extracurriculars, whereas you look at your John Hayes, you're John Adams, which are the highest performing schools in the district, what you would call a magnet school.

And there you see these across urban districts, you know, there are some in many cases, there are just a couple of schools that perform really well.

They get the cream of the crop.

Sometimes there's a lottery to get in, so it could be a little bit harder to get in and that is where the, the best programing is because they focus the resources there.

They say, we've already got this great thing going on.

We don't want to hurt that, you know.

And the district is saying that here is what we're preserving these high performing schools.

They're actually moving more kids into them as well.

Bring these other ones up.

And exactly.

And the schools that remain, they're going to add new programing to them.

So one thing we do have to note is you were saying some of these schools have few programs or few sporting events.

They also have few students.

When you when you look at the district and we took a look for the last several decades, we're talking about a huge percentage.

Yeah, fewer students at Cleveland.

If you look at the population of Cleveland, we've lost so many people.

And this happens with a lot of, you know, cities in Ohio.

Columbus is, you know, one of the few that's growing.

But, yeah, in Cleveland, we, the enrollments is about half what it was two and a half decades ago.

In terms of the school district.

And so that's, you know, that's a huge loss.

And the district says and, you know, some studies back this up as well.

If you got fewer students, you're going to fewer teachers.

That means those teachers are not there to to be a coach, to be offering, you know, these extracurriculars or these other, you know, programs that that might make a school more desirable to go to.

So it's kind of a vicious cycle is what district leaders are describing.

And we then also have the state audit that looks at it and basically says that if you have fewer students in the same number of buildings, that's not good.

The state audit said you have too many people.

Yeah.

There's a recent audit that the CEO referenced that we need to look into a little bit more.

I want to take a look through it myself.

But he said they told the district basically got too many buildings and, you know, too many also too many administrators for the number of students.

And that's something we have reported on before.

Cleveland does spend the most of any of the large public school districts in Ohio on an administration versus students.

It's about $4,000 or so per student.

Compared to like Columbus, it's about $500 less or so.

And Cincinnati.

So there is a lot that, they say that we need to change.

And this is their big bet for changing it.

The Ohio legislature passed sweeping legislation changing the state's laws for recreational marijuana and intoxicating hemp.

It's up to the governor to sign it, but he may use his line item veto.

But let's talk about the changes first to intoxicating hemp, especially as the bill relates to beverages derived from it.

Those are still good, but only for like maybe a year.

Right?

And this bill, when you talk about history, goes back.

I mean, the first discussions about changing the marijuana law go back to when voters approved the marijuana law in 2023.

And DeWine and others said that because it was a law, legislators should make some changes.

They didn't like some of the things that were in that law that voters approved.

And so now we're talking about including intoxicating hemp, which is Delta, Etsy and other things in this whole piece of legislation.

So the Senate had proposed at the House made some changes that the Senate was concerned about.

At one point there was this long, House session where there was a deal.

Eventually worked out, and now the Senate has approved this.

So it would ban all hemp based items with more than 0.4mg of total THC.

So if that means something to you.

Yeah, I mean, all of them, there's nothing that has that low of a of a number.

Yeah.

But it also I think the big thing here is that it does put some regulations on those THC beverages which have become very popular.

They're sold at convenience stores and bars and things like that.

And this is very similar to, something that was put into the so-called big beautiful Bill.

I think, maybe it was now it was the shutdown.

That's what that is.

The, it was, some regulations that were put into that deal that ended the federal government shutdown, that it kind of mimics what that bill does in terms of allowing those THC beverages to be legal, at least for the next year.

But there's some room to move here, I guess, according to some lawmakers who say that if the federal law changes, then the state law can change as well.

Let's talk about changes for the actual marijuana, legal marijuana laws.

One communities will get some of the tax money from that.

Something has been they've been waiting on that for a while.

That's a big deal.

About $80 million that the state has been holding on to from the revenue that's been collected since marijuana sales started.

It can actually be distributed to communities that have dispensaries.

And communities have been calling for this for a long time.

So that's a big deal here.

And the other reason it's a big deal is because this does allow because it's an appropriation, it allows governor Mike DeWine to potentially issue some line item vetoes.

So that's what we're going to be looking at.

I spoke with him yesterday for our year end interview for our TV show, The State of Ohio, and he mentioned that he's going to sign this law, but he didn't say if he was going to line item veto any elements of it.

So the overall law he likes.

But there are certain things in here that he may not and he may, put his opinion on that.

And finally, Democrats are not happy with the changes to this recreational marijuana law.

They say it could re criminalize possession.

Yeah.

And Democrats in both chambers were concerned about this because it does.

There are some things in here like it makes it a crime to store edibles outside of their original packaging.

So if you put it in another container that would be bad.

Or if you're bringing in marijuana from another state into Ohio.

So they're concerned about some of the things that they say that this does, that kind of re criminalizes things that voters had already said that they wanted to overturn.

And that's been the whole discussion all along, is does this bill protect kids, which is what Republicans have said and put some needed regulations on marijuana and intoxicating hemp, or does it go against the will of the voters, which is what most Democrats have been saying?

Okay, one more question.

There's a separate decision by a joint committee on agency rule review now limits how dispensaries can advertise that also brought some criticism.

You can you can advertise alcohol.

Right.

And that was the whole point of the 2023 amendment was titled essentially the the way to regulate marijuana like alcohol.

And so you see beer advertisements and wine advertisements all the time.

But this is the Joint Committee on Agency Rule Review, which is a panel that looks into stuff like this.

They banned advertising on billboards, radio, television, the internet and stadiums.

And, there's some questions about whether this is constitutional or not.

And it does really push back on what that 2023, ballot issue did say.

A judge said Ohio could withdraw money from the state's unclaimed funds account to fund stadium projects, including $600 million for a new Brown Stadium in Brook Park.

But the lawsuit challenging the plan is still active here, and the decision is essentially a win for the Haslam Sports Group.

But it's not necessarily game over.

Well, and that's what, Mark Dan who is one of the two attorneys who has filed the lawsuit trying to stop the unclaimed funds from being used for the Brown Stadium, said.

And when I talked to him after this, because this was a, there's a case that's going on on whether it is constitutional for the state to use that unclaimed funds, which Dan and his other, counterpart in this, Jeffrey Grossman, they're both Democratic former state lawmakers.

Dan, of course, is the former attorney general of Ohio as well.

They've said that it's unconstitutional for the state to take money that they don't own and basically use it in this way.

And, the state has said that this is something that they have the right to do.

And so this case ended up before a federal judge who was solely supposed to decide whether that transfer could go forward on January 1st.

And he did, federal judge in Saugus ruled that on January 1st, the state can start transferring between 1.7 and $1.9 billion in unclaimed funds held before 2016.

Over into this fund that will be used to pay that $600 million for the Brown state.

If no one claimed the funds, what what would happen to them anyway?

Did they just stay there in perpetuity?

Pretty much.

And that's been the argument, I think that this money's there.

It's not earning interest.

And so it can be used in other ways.

Other states do use unclaimed funds in different ways.

But the argument that Dan and Grossman have been making is that this is money that the state is not entitled to, because they're only holding it for the rightful owners of this money till they claim it.

But a lot of people don't claim that money.

They don't know it's there.

The claiming process is very difficult.

In some cases.

You have to prove all sorts of relationships if you're trying to claim for somebody else, or it can be very difficult and it can be really little amounts of money, it adds up a lot.

But, you know, for you it's 15 bucks or something.

If you put a bunch of those together.

We're talking about building a stadium.

Well, and there are some people who have much higher numbers, in that unclaimed funds thing.

And one of the things that the judges said that it was the reason that kind of suggested why he is allowing this transfer to go forward is that people can still claim that money, even people with claims that go back before 2016 until 2037, I think 2036.

And so there's still that opportunity for people who have those that money in there and legally can claim it to still get their money back.

All right.

And the lawsuit, though, about whether it's constitutional, that has not been decided.

This was just the short term.

Can they start withdrawing on January 1st?

If they are, if they prevail in the lawsuit, the people that are against this, you would assume that that has to go back in.

Right.

And that was one of the things that Dan said.

It was kind of a mixed ruling for him because yes, the transfer can go forward starting on January 1st.

They've actually gone, I think, and filed another attempt to try to stop that transfer in a different court.

But, he said the case continues, and that's been their argument all along, is that they want to establish the constitutionality of whether the state can do this or not.

And the judges, or the unclaimed money.

Is we've talked about the Browns, the $600 million for the Browns.

But it's not just the Browns.

This is a cultural and sports facility performance grant fund.

So there are a number of other teams that are also looking at this, because I think at some point they're going to want a piece of the pie.

Right.

And if you remember earlier in the year when we were talking about the budget, governor DeWine had proposed this idea of taking money from sports gambling and kind of putting it toward a sports facilities fund and, increasing the tax on sports gambling.

Lawmakers didn't want that.

And so they kind of came up with this idea on unclaimed funds.

And, yes, this could be used for Bengals Stadium and anybody else who may be coming forward.

And certainly there have been some some rumblings of other groups coming forward.

The question, of course, now is whether cultural facilities can be a part of that.

And do they have to go through the same process or are there different rules for, you know, something that's related to the arts versus something that is related to sports?

And I should state that, it was made very clear in the federal court that this is not the Brown Stadium.

According to the state, it is a multi, a transformational multi-use facility.

So there.

Okay.

And it's covered, Jacqueline sent us an email.

She says I think there was unclaimed funds since it came from taxpayers, should be used for our social net programs that are being cut.

Why couldn't we use them for homeless housing or feeding children or child care subsidies?

There are many better uses than to subsidize this.

That's Jacqueline's point of view.

Holiday lighting displays are up around the region, but if you love the lights at Nila Park, formerly owned by General Electric, you'll have to do some driving to see them.

Corner.

You're not gonna be able to drive there and be awed by this.

However, there is a little bit of a silver lining.

Some of those displays are elsewhere in the county.

Yeah, they've been placed throughout the county, and I didn't know that Nila Park was the first industrial park in the world.

Actually, as I was looking into this, I found that very interesting.

But yeah, they've been donated to a variety of nonprofit and other communities.

The Public Square Park, Playhouse Square, Western Reserve Historical Society, Boys and Girls Clubs, Cleveland's Parks and Rec departments receive some donations as well.

You might be able to the zoo.

Ohio city.

So I wonder if somebody should put together, like, a little a little, like a map.

Like a map.

A little round like a treasure hunt.

Yeah.

And you can get the experience, but you're going to get it with, like, a tank of gas.

And there is some decoration in the park, too.

Still.

Yes, they've left some there.

And then further out there's been some in Euclid and Highland Hills.

So some other folks, some other places out in the county as well.

Yeah.

Replica of the national Christmas tree in Washington, DC is still at Nila Park, so that would be one of the stops on the little map that I'm absolutely not going to be putting.

We're going to make you do that work.

Another one of my great ideas I never do.

Major League Baseball this week approved the sale of the Akron Rubber Ducks minor league team to the prospector baseball group.

Ken Babby, the principal and founder of Fast Forward Sports Group, has owned the team since 2012 and oversaw its rebranding from the old Akron Arrows to the Rubber Ducks.

He recently became CEO of the Tampa Bay rays.

So now we have new owners.

Who are these?

Oreo?

Yes, a prospector baseball group is owned by, or led by John Abbott Mundy, who's a long time sports executive, and Ben Boyer, who's a tech entrepreneur on the group, also acquired the Jacksonville Jumbo Shrimp through this deal.

They're an affiliate of the Miami Marlins, which is another team that babby owned previously.

So these are the new the new leads.

I love minor league baseball team names, the jumbo shrimp, the rubber ducks.

There's all of them.

Needs to be a team named the Feral Cats in the city.

That has a particular problem with feral cats.

And I've got a couple for Matt Grant, so thank you.

Chris.

Yeah.

Baby, who was the previous owner is excited about this new ownership group?

Yeah.

He said that they put a lot of thought into picking, this company to own the team.

And he said that he's confident in the ability that, John and Ben will have to be worthy, passionate, leaders of the team at this point.

Yeah.

And he was given a lot of credit, too.

Babby was by the city for, you know, revitalizing the team.

It's really cool to go to Canal Park, but it's also affordable.

It's a it's a great attraction.

It's not just for Akron.

It's I mean, if you do, you paid the money to go to a Guardians game and it's well worth it.

But a lot.

Yeah, you'll certainly save a lot and have a great experience at something like, a game with the rubber ducks.

That's good to know.

I only go to the our our one Guardians game a year here at Ida Stream, so maybe you'll have to check out your rubber ducks.

I think actually, Anna Huntsman set up a rubber ducks visit last year for the group, and I, I missed it.

I think, you know, we'll do it next time.

Go.

Karen.

The ducks are known as a quality minor league club.

As the Double-A affiliate of the Guardians and a key part of their talent pipeline.

I know you pay attention to the Clippers, the Triple-A affiliate, but you get a lot of Clippers from ducks.

Absolutely.

I mean, minor league baseball is the best way to see talent as it's coming up through the system and also people who are on rehab.

I mean, Gavin Williams, Bo Naylor, Steven Kwan have all been at Akron as well as Chased a Lot or Pete Halpin, Austin Peterson, we've seen some of these names that have gone on and done really well.

Travis Balzano, and I just have to add minor league baseball.

You're absolutely right.

It has some of the best names out there the trash pandas, the yard goats, the flying squirrels, and also the isotopes.

So shout out to Simpsons fans out there, the Albuquerque Isotopes.

So, Columbus Clippers just sounds kind of.

Yeah, it's kind of boring compared to some of these names.

Monday on the Sound of Ideas on 89 seven KSU, we'll hear from Republican gubernatorial candidate Vivek Ramaswamy.

I'm Mike McIntyre.

Thank you so much for watching.

And stay safe.