Welcome to the Sound of Ideas Reporters' Roundtable from Ideastream Public Media.

I'm Stephanie Haney, in for Mike McIntyre.

Thank you for being with us.

On the table today, the Republican Party wrapped up its first-ever midterm convention on Thursday.

We'll share what we know about President Donald Trump's promise to pay Americans should the GOP retain control of the U.S.

House and Senate.

With the recent attack on Ohio gubernatorial Democratic candidate Dr.

Amy Acton, we'll look at whether campaign rhetoric is fueling the fire, while both Acton and her Republican opponent Vivek Ramaswamy have said they condemn political violence.

On the 25-year anniversary of the September 11th attacks, we'll let you know what's happening in Northeast Ohio to honor first responders as new information has been revealed about the possible cover-up of air pollution around Ground Zero in New York City.

In Lakewood, we've got the details on elementary school consolidation plans that are moving along again and how FirstEnergy is promising to improve the electrical grid after pressure from the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio.

Plus, the Cleveland Guardians have a new athlete owner on their roster.

We'll tell you who is joining Cleveland Heights native Travis Kelce's baseball team.

With me today in our studio here at the Idea Center in Cleveland, we have Matt Richmond, Ideastream's criminal justice reporter.

Hi, Matt.

Morning.

Also with us, we have Conor Morris, our education reporter.

Hi, Conor.

Hi.

And joining us from our Columbus studio, Ideastream's Statehouse News Bureau Chief Karen Kasler.

Hello, Karen.

Hello.

If you would like to join this conversation, you can email us at soi@ideastream.org, or you can message us on Instagram @thesoundofideas.

Now, the Republican National Committee held its first-ever midterm convention this week in Dallas, Texas.

President Donald Trump was the keynote speaker, and Vice President JD Vance spoke on day 2.

Dozens of Republicans who will be on the ballot this year did not attend the event.

That includes Congressman Max Miller, who is running to be reelected for Ohio's 7th Congressional District.

He's running against Democratic candidate Brian Poindexter.

Now, during President Donald Trump's speech, Trump promised a dividend of $5,000 to every adult citizen if the Republican Party maintains control of Congress in the midterm election.

Karen, tell us, What would this cost, and did Trump place any restrictions on how the money would have to be spent?

Well, that's a those are really good questions and questions that obviously people are thinking about right now.

It, uh, there's an estimate about 245 million U.S.

citizen adults.

So if you take the math and add to that, that's $5,000 checks for that $1.2 trillion.

But there's a lot of things that would have to happen before these checks would go out.

And one of the questions that's been asked is if the U.S.

can do this now, because Trump says the US is making so much money that the US can do this now.

Why not do it now?

Why not wait till after the midterms?

Why not do it now?

But it would have to pass both houses of Congress, and there are a lot of things that would have to happen here for this to actually go forward.

And it should be said that Trump has talked about checks in the past.

There was a DOGE dividend of $5,000.

There was a $2,000 check from tariffs.

Those checks never came out.

So I think there are a lot of people who are looking at this in the same light.

They are looking at those saying, well, we'll believe it when we see it.

Karen, you mentioned some of the checks that have been mentioned in the past, like the check related to tariffs, some of which have been clawed back by the justice system.

Karen, where would this money come from for this $5,000 promised check if it were to come to fruition?

Well, that's a really good question.

Again, uh, there was some suggestion that it could come from tariffs, but like you said, tariffs have been clawed back, and there really wouldn't be enough money that the U.S.

has taken in from tariffs to go ahead and pay this So Trump didn't provide any details on the money, which is quite often what happens in situations like this.

So who knows?

I mean, if it even does happen, obviously there would have to be a source for that money, but no source has been identified as of right now.

Karen, you did mention that an act of Congress would be required here.

I just do want to know, because there have been some questions people have wondering, is this even legal?

Can you say that if the Republicans maintain power, what would happen there?

So a couple notes on the legality of this.

It does appear to be a First Amendment protected campaign promise.

And Bernie Moreno had some comments about how he would support this.

Karen, did you see that on X with a piece of legislation?

Oh, absolutely.

And yeah, absolutely.

And I think that's very interesting because in 2024, Moreno put out a statement criticizing Joe Biden, President Joe Biden's COVID spending, and, and kind of along with a lot of other Republicans blaming the money that was basically pushed out during COVID and after COVID for our current affordability crisis.

So he was criticizing Biden just 2 years ago, and now he's saying he's going to be the sponsor of this legislation if this actually comes to pass.

And so that's an interesting change.

And we've also seen like even Republican candidate for governor Vivek Ramaswamy talking about how it's Biden's monetary policies that led to too much money and inflation and all of these things.

But yet now you have Trump basically proposing the same kind of thing and, and to see Republicans on both sides of this.

And there are some Republicans who have really pushed back on this, saying this is not this is not a good idea.

The timing of this sounds kind of bribe-y, you know, and it just it feels like it's not the kind of thing that some conservatives say really would be something that would be supported by them.

And as we said, this comment was made at the Republican midterm convention, Karen, the first of its kind.

First time we've seen this.

Any insight into why Republicans chose to have a midterm convention?

Well, Democrats have had midterm conventions before, but not for decades now.

But yeah, this was the first midterm Republican convention.

And attendees are talking about how this is a great thing to really get support going and fire everybody up for the midterms, because obviously these are going to be close when it comes to control of the House and Senate.

I think the goal was to really kind of get that same kind of spirit that happened in 2024 when Republicans won the White House and maintained control of Congress and the House and the Senate.

So I think that's part of it.

But obviously raising money is another big part of that.

So it remains to be seen whether this is going to work because Trump is not on the ballot, but he's talked about pretending like he's on the ballot and wants voters to think he's on the ballot, consider that he's on the ballot.

This is kind of a way to put him out there like he is on the ballot, but he's not.

Meanwhile, Democrats are saying, sure, let's go ahead and consider that Trump is on the ballot because of his current approval ratings and that sort of thing.

Another notable event from this midterm convention, during Vice President JD Vance's keynote speech that happened on Thursday, the audience could be heard chanting JD 48, suggesting that they maybe wanted, at least the people who were in attendance, wanted Vance to succeed Trump as president when the next presidential election happens in 2 years.

How did Vance respond to that, Karen?

Well, I think this is an interesting moment because you're starting to see, I guess, some folks talking about what happens after Trump, because Trump for a while was even hinting that he might try to run again, which obviously that would come up against constitutional questions.

But Vance seems to be interested in the idea, certainly.

Uh, and obviously a person who is vice president is that close to being president.

But of course, there could be a real struggle in the Republican Party.

You've got other well-known figures.

I mean, think back to 2016 when there were like, you know, more than a dozen people running for president at one point.

So in fact, I think there were more than 20 at one point.

So that's obviously Vance wants to come out of all of this being the one in the I think because it gives him the best shot, the best leg up, so to speak.

Now, here in Ohio, in the political field, over the weekend, an armed man was arrested after lunging toward Democratic candidate for Ohio governor, Dr.

Amy Acton, at the Canfield Fair, injuring 2 other people in the attack.

Matt, can you tell us about the charges that this man is facing now and exactly what happened during this attack?

So Patrick Havas, he entered the Mahoning County Democratic Party tent at the fair.

And so there were no the campaign had asked people not to be recording.

So we don't have a bunch of videos to see exactly what happened.

We have his phone, because he took his phone out and was recording, was making his way towards the front of the tent towards Acton, and apparently was shouting things at her.

And along the way, he knocked some people over and they were injured.

He was arrested by the, by the State Highway Patrol, and he's facing charges for misdemeanor charges for assault, 2 of those, and then 1 charge for disorderly conduct.

He has a, he has a pretrial hearing in Mahoning County in October.

And, you know, so far what we've heard from the prosecutor is that he Well, he was carrying weapons.

He didn't take them out.

And it's not illegal to have weapons at the county fair.

So, you know, just having them at that moment was not there was nothing to charge him on that.

And then he said that, you know, just going off the video from his phone, he didn't get close to Acton and he was stopped before he got there.

And so they are continuing to investigate, you know, looking at his phone, I assume, going through probably his social media, just trying to take a look to see if he was planning something more, you know, if he hadn't been stopped.

Speaking of the looking into the social media backstory there, Matt, which law enforcement officials are handling the investigation into this?

So it's the Ohio State Patrol and the Mahoning County Sheriff's Office.

The Highway Patrol had been assigned to security detail for Acton and for the rest of the candidates for governor and lieutenant governor.

Okay.

Now, with the Ohio State Highway Patrol being assigned to security for them, is this in line with Ohio's new candidate security law?

What does this new law actually require here in Ohio?

So it actually takes effect next week and would require a full-time security detail for all 4 of those candidates, for the governor, the lieutenant governor, and then their opponents in the election.

And then, you know, So all the whether or not they're running, you know, if they're sitting governor or sitting lieutenant governor, they get the security detail, obviously.

And then it puts money behind it.

It allocates $10 million for security through next year.

Okay.

Karen, what else are Ohio lawmakers doing in response to political violence?

Well, we've seen a lot of statements condemning this, and it was interesting to watch some of the statements as they came out on Sunday, which, you know, middle of a holiday weekend, but we had a lot of people commenting on how this is political violence.

It has no place in Ohio or anywhere else.

And anything that keeps candidates from engaging with voters is a terrible thing.

But then you started to see some right-wing influencers talk about this, this was a hoax, that this was overblown by Democrats.

This wasn't an assassination attempt.

Well, nobody said it was an assassination attempt, but the reality is that an armed man did get fairly close to the Democratic candidate for governor, and that's a serious security concern.

And so my colleague Sarah Donaldson asked Governor Mike DeWine whether he was concerned about some of these reports, these influencers who were saying these things like it's not, it isn't a serious concern, it was a hoax.

And he said that was a bunch of garbage, that no one overblew this.

This is a situation that happened.

And the question, of course, too, is why wasn't there video?

Because we expect there to be video and photos of everything.

Now that everyone has phones that they can use to record.

We were trying to find out from the acting campaign whether her team actually did advise people and tell people not to record, because that's an interesting thing right there.

Her team was very they weren't very direct on whether her team did tell volunteers there not to record, just saying that there are security concerns that are leading campaigns to ask people not to record, because they're concerned about things called trackers, who are people from other campaigns who come in and try to record their opponent doing something that they can later use in an ad or something like that.

And so there, there obviously are concerns about that.

Beyond that, I'm not sure what security concerns would be created by recording video somewhere, but that's, that's where we are right now.

We do know that Dr.

Acton's gubernatorial opponent, Republican Vivek Ramaswamy, condemned political violence after the attack on Acton.

But Acton's campaign has criticized Ramaswamy for falsely calling her a socialist and saying the Second Amendment right to bear arms was made for fighting socialism.

I reached out to Ramaswamy's campaign press team to ask him to respond to the idea that he's encouraging violence against Acton with those remarks.

Did not get a response back there.

Now let's talk about some of the things that the candidates are saying about hot-button issues this week.

Dr.

Acton shared her position on 2 issues that could face the next governor: restrictions on flock cameras and the potential expansion of online gambling.

We also have comments from Ramaswamy on those things.

Karen, what is Acton proposing when it comes to flock cameras?

Well, I got a chance to talk to both Vivek Ramaswamy and Amy Acton for our TV show, The State of Ohio, over the last week.

I talked to Ramaswamy last Thursday.

I talked to Acton on Tuesday.

And these were extended sit-down interviews, 24 minutes of just questions and answers, unedited.

And you can see how the candidates actually responded to some of these questions.

We focused on policy, though, rather than the campaigns and, and some of the issues going on.

I did ask them a little bit about that, but I really wanted to talk to them about property taxes and data centers.

And we spent some time on those.But obviously, there are other issues involved here, like you just mentioned, flock cameras and expanding internet gambling.

Those are key issues for, I think, a lot of people who are looking at trying to decide who to vote for here.

On flock cameras, Amy Acton said that at one point she had said that she agreed with Governor Mike DeWine that cameras like this are used to solve crimes, but she wanted a full comprehensive review of all public safety and emergency technology once she took office.

Well, now she's pushed that a little bit harder now, saying that she would support a bipartisan ban on flock cameras.

And so that's really kind of movement on that issue.

Ramaswamy has been kind of in that same space there, where he said that he doesn't believe that the United States and Ohio should be part of a surveillance state, which is what a lot of people who oppose flock cameras have said they feel that they are.

But he has not called for an outright ban on flock cameras either.

So this is This is a tough issue, I think, because you do have police who are saying they're important and other people who are saying we don't like the idea that these cameras are everywhere and they have virtually no regulations on how the data is used and where it goes.

And what are state lawmakers saying about flock cameras, Karen?

What are they pursuing?

Well, there's a bill that was just recently introduced to try to ban flock cameras.

There's a letter that that was a Republican bill.

There was a bipartisan letter that was sent out to try to urge some regulation on flock cameras because that's really the issue here.

Here is it's not just flock cameras.

It's automatic license plate readers, different companies, different cameras.

And they're basically controlled by local regulation.

And there are pretty much no statewide rules on them.

And so the question becomes, should there be some statewide rules?

And this is the kind of argument that we've seen with traffic cameras, for instance, because you've got some communities that were using them extensively, using them for red light cameras and speed cameras, some communities not, where the money was going, all that.

This really kind of reminds me of that debate over what local communities can do and whether the state and state lawmakers should put some rules on what they can do.

And what do we know about what the candidates are saying about online gambling, Karen?

Well, Vivek Ramaswamy is supported by a lot of Christian leaders who are very concerned about expanding gambling.

They say that it ruins lives, especially the lives of young men.

And so they've really pushed back hard against an effort last year to try to expand online gambling.

Well, they now back Ramaswamy, and Ramaswamy says he's interested in having a full discussion about this.

He didn't come down one way or the other, whereas Acton came down a little bit harder on she would be okay with expanded gambling because it raises revenue that would fund important services and programs, but she wants a lot of rules and regulations on it.

She wants to stop the predatory advertising and things like that.

So they're kind of different perspectives here, and I think that that's another thing that we're going to see moving forward because you do have Some Republican lawmakers who believe in leadership, who believe that expanding gambling other states are doing it.

Why not have Ohio do it and start to bring in some more money from that as a revenue source?

Thank you for taking a look at that, Karen.

We'll certainly keep an eye on how those opinions may evolve as we get closer to Election Day.

Now we'll take a moment to reflect.

Today marks 25 years since the September 11th, 2001 terrorist attacks.

Northeast Ohio communities are commemorating the anniversary with events honoring the nearly 3,000 people killed, as well as its first responders first responders, and others affected by the attacks.

I imagine many people in the United States today will be thinking about where they were when the September 11th attacks happened.

Conor, do you remember where you were?

Yeah, I was in 3rd or 4th grade, uh, and I was at school, of course, and, uh, they had the TVs turned on to some of the news coverage.

And then my friend's mom, who lived really close by, actually just walked over during recess and came over and gave us both a big hug and just kind of very gently tried to explain to us what happened.

And we were just really confused, you know?

So, yeah, it was a tough time for us and the country.

Yeah.

Matt, what about you?

Do you remember where you were?

Yeah, very well.

I was I had just worked for the summer on a fishing boat in Alaska and was traveling down on an old sailboat that was being donated to a maritime museum.

And so we didn't see any video.

We didn't have cell phone service.

And we kind of heard about it through the course of the day, just from bits and pieces over the radio.

And it took a couple of days until we kind of saw the video and knew exactly what happened.

And we were wondering, you know, if we'd be able to go back in the country, what sort of what would be going on in the country when we got back.

So it was really a very frightening situation.

A lot of scary uncertainty, definitely.

Karen, what about for you?

Do you recall what you were doing or where you were when you learned about the September 11th attacks?

Vividly, because I was on my way to work at another radio station in Cleveland, getting ready to go on the air.

the entire day in the newsroom, so watching everything as it was happening.

It was a terrifying time to be in news because you're the people who are supposed to be in control and telling people what's going on and being very fact-based.

And it was really a It was terrifying.

It was really very scary.

My husband, my late husband then, was a pilot.

And so obviously there were a lot of concerns.

He wasn't flying that day, but other friends of his were.

And so we were concerned about obviously the people who were not only pilots but passengers in the air.

So, and I just remember at the end of the day going home and looking up at the sky and noticing there were no contrails, no planes, because they'd all been grounded.

And that was such a weird thing to look up and see.

I was in 11th grade.

I was in Spanish class, and we heard someone run down the hallway saying, the United States has been attacked.

You heard it here first.And we all thought it was a weird joke, an obviously not funny joke, but we spent the rest of the day in class paying attention to the news throughout the rest of that school day.

A lot of uncertainty at that time.

And today we know that the events of September 11th are being commemorated.

It is happening in New York City.

There have been some beautiful, beautiful tributes that have been shared on social media.

And also some events happening here in Northeast Ohio.

Matt, can you tell us a bit about what's happening?

Yeah, there are events all over the place.

I mean, I'll just give you a few.

There's a memorial stair climb at 6 at University of Akron's InfoCision Stadium.

There's a 9/11 5K at Edgewater Park today at 6:30.

There's an event here at Public Square, excuse me, at Playhouse Square called Behind the Lines.

9/11 story.

There's an event in Westlake where the names of the people killed on 9/11 will be read outside of the public library.

Matt, let's talk a little bit about some news that's coming out of New York.

New York City Mayor Zorhan Mamdani released news about the city's first public portal.

This is related to previously undisclosed information about what city officials do and when related to the city's air quality.

So what's been released on that portal so far?

Um, a lot of material.

It's about 170,000 pages.

And, um, it was kind of it was known because of, because of lawsuits by, uh, families who or people who got sick at 9/11, that there was, that there was a lack of transparency about the air quality at the, at the site after, uh, 9/11.And this is kind of there's, uh, just so many documents that these families, um, and these survivors had been asking for for, for years.

The mayor just kind of put them out on a public portal and said that he'll continue to have them released.

I guess he put $30 million in the budget for releasing these records over the next year.

Okay, and there have been some loud voices in New York, Matt, that have been calling for Mayor Mamdani, who is a Muslim, to refrain from attending events commemorating the attacks.

Can you tell us about that?

Yeah, there's a, there's an online petition that has 110,000 signatures at this point.

And it kind of lays out a series of reasons why they think that his presence at the memorial service would be inappropriate and would be a problem for families.

Can you share with us what any of their stated reasons might be?

So some of it is his connections to his father, who is an academic, wrote about kind of the politics of suicide bombers, and they felt that was an inappropriate kind of normalization of that practice.

There is a commentator who he hasn't failed to condemn, whose comments about 9/11 are, are kind of beyond what the, what the petition would consider acceptable in political discourse.

And then there's, you know, some religious and political figures that either he has aligned himself with or he has not kind of publicly condemned.

And so they, they take issue with that.

Okay.

We turn now to news related to non-citizens in the United States.

Ohio Senators Bernie Moreno and Jon Husted are asking the federal government to stop states from issuing driver's licenses to immigrants living in the United States without legal authorization.

This is following a car accident involving an immigrant with a Connecticut drive-only license.

Karen, why are Moreno and Husted pushing for this?

Well, there was a crash in Fulton County in August in which the person who was charged with that crash had gotten a driver's license from, I believe it's Connecticut.

Yeah, Connecticut.

And it's a drive-only license, which are licenses that are issued to people who are undocumented or are still in the process of getting their citizenship, but it's, it's meant to be drive-only, not to be used for any other identification purposes.

And so there's some real questions about whether that should be recognized in other states.

If one state wants to do that, that's fine, but should the other state have to recognize that?

And so Husted and Marina are saying no, because obviously this accident was a serious issue and then obviously a fatal accident.

So there's a real question about whether these drive-only licenses should be allowed anywhere.

We do want to let you know that Jon Husted has faced backlash recently after the National Republican Senatorial Committee aired an attack ad against candidate Sherrod Brown.

Those are the 2 candidates vying for the Senate seat currently held by Husted.

The subject of this ad was another crash that killed a family of 3 in April.

The ad insinuates the driver was not a citizen.

However, the driver involved in that crash is not facing any immigration-related charges.

Relatives of the victims who were portrayed in that ad said that they were not asked for and would not have given their permission to use that story, use those images, use their story in the ad.

At an event in Columbus at the end of last month, Husted said that his campaign had nothing to do with that ad, and as soon as they learned that the family didn't like the ad and didn't approve of the images being shown, that he told the people who put it up to take it down.

He said, quote, I'm with them on this.

They've suffered enough.

They don't need to suffer anymore.

One of the victim's relatives, however, said it is hard for that person to take comments from Husted and the National Republican Senatorial Committee at face value because the ad is still posted online.

As of this morning, we did see that that ad is still on YouTube.

As we mentioned, that ad points blame at Sherrod Brown for his policies related to immigration, saying that they are related to causing are causing danger for people here in the United States.

Brown has not, to my knowledge, spoken publicly on this issue of driver-only licenses.

Karen, how many states have this driver-only license?

That's a good question.

This is actually a story that my colleague Sarah Donaldson did, so I'm a little I'm still catching up here.

But I guess it's kind of the idea of, you know, if one state does it, should other states do it?

And pretty typically, other states have recognized driver's licenses that are issued in any other state.

You know, if you move from one state to another, you, you can drive in that state.

And so I think that this is an interesting question to bring up in terms of what the individual states have in control of their driver's licenses and what they, what they acknowledge and take from other states.

Did get a note from my producer, Aya Cathy.

It is 19 states plus Washington, D.C.

that have the driver-only license.

A note about what is available here in Ohio.

The Ohio Department of Public Safety said in a statement that Ohio does not issue drive-only credentials to undocumented people living in the United States, and also that the state of Ohio doesn't issue any kind of identifying credentials to any kind of person who does not have legal status here in the United States.

So, Karen, what are Moreno and Husted asking the federal government to do with this legislation?

Well, it looks like they just want this legislation to kind of clarify exactly what individual states they want to basically block other states from issuing those kind of driver's licenses to immigrants who are living in the U.S.

Undocumented.

And so that would take away this whole concern about drive-only versus not having drive-only licenses.

federal legislation that would just block states from issuing those kind of driver's licenses.

Staying on the topic of accidents related to vehicles, here in Ohio, newly released data shows that between 2021 and 2025, Cuyahoga County had more distracted driving crashes than any other county in the state.

State.

This is according to data from the Ohio State Highway Patrol.

Conor, how many distracted driving crashes were there here in Cuyahoga County, and how does that compare to other areas of Ohio?

Yeah, during that 5-year period, there were 4,400 distracted driving crashes.

Hamilton County, which includes Cincinnati, was second.

So we were first, this, this county was first, and then Hamilton County was second with 3,800 crashes.

And it's interesting data that I'd recommend folks go and take a look at because you often hear people say, well, people are the craziest drivers where I'm from, you know?

And so this is actually putting some numbers to it, actually.

What's the year been like so far in 2026 in Cuyahoga County, Conor?

Yeah, they're actually up, distracted driving citations in Cuyahoga County are up 113% from 936 the year before to 1,900, almost 2,000.So this includes crashes caused by passengers and other activities inside a vehicle, not just cell phone use.

Okay.

Let's talk about this past Labor Day weekend.

Labor Day weekend has historically potentially been a dangerous time on the road.

12 people died in fatal car crashes over this past Labor Day weekend.

That's according to the Ohio State Highway Patrol.

One death is too many.

Conor, has there been any trend for vehicle fatalities surrounding Labor Day over the past several years in Ohio?

So right now it looks like the statewide death toll was the lowest recorded during the Labor Day holiday period in the past 4 years.

So there were 24 traffic fatalities in 2023, 18 in 2024, and 27 in 2025.

And, you know, I mean, driving is one of the most dangerous things that we do on a daily basis, you know, just statistically.

Of course, unless you have like a really dangerous job that you do, you know, regularly.

So, you know, and especially during Labor Day and these holiday weekends when people are potentially are are, you know, drinking and driving, that's really when we see these ramped-up enforcement periods.

Speaking of enforcement, what did we see from the Ohio State Highway Patrol?

What kind of things were they managing over the weekend?

Yeah, statewide troopers responded to 502 crashes.

They issued 1,500 distracted driving citations, and they also made 426 arrests for operating a vehicle while impaired.

So it's quite a few.

And also generally, we've got this relatively new-ish law on the books where, you know, any kind of since 2023, any kind of electronic device that you've got on your hand or supported by your body is considered distracted driving.

So they've ramped up the laws and enforcement around, you know, using a cell phone while you're driving.

If someone notices someone who they think might be a danger on the road, how can they report that?

You can call 677 to report dangerous, impaired, or drug-related driving activity.

Okay, 677.

Thank you for that, Conor.

Now staying in Cuyahoga County, nearly 1,500 county employees who currently have free parking access may soon have to pay for that parking access, potentially $50 or more a month.

Matt, why is this proposed cost happening?

Uh, well, the county needs money, um, and you know, it would raise about, uh, $90,000, the, the proposed fees, which are still in front of county council, and they are likely to change before passing.

But the proposal would raise about $90,000 for a facilities fund every month.

And that fund would go towards upkeep for the parking garages, which apparently need about $8 million in repair.

And this isn't necessarily something that's impacting all county employees.

Who would this impact?

No, it would be so The employees like at the headquarters downtown on 9th Street, they already pay for parking.

It would be the ones at the new Board of Elections building on Superior, at the Jane Addams Hunter Social Services building, the Howley Building, and at the Medical Examiner's Office over in University Circle.

Okay.

If these changes get approved, they would take effect January 1st.

We know that this decision comes following news earlier this month about county departments needing to cut expenses by 3.3%.

There is a more than $19 million deficit in the general fund.

Where do county officials stand on the parking cost issue, Matt?

So there is kind of, as a general idea, it got support at county council that, you know, there was kind of seemed to be a consensus that some sort of fees need to be added.

There was concern because different locations would have different costs and the county was basing that on sort of the market cost of parking.

Wherever that building is.

And, you know, some, some county council members said that wasn't really fair, that, you know, depending upon where you work, you pay more.

They are going to continue to discuss it.

They're looking at kind of implementing it in stages over the next few years.

And they're trying to figure out what exactly number they want to kind of hit for the increases.

So they're going to continue discussing it in council.

And what kind of public works and what the county administration says is that this has to be done or we're going to have to start pulling from the general fund to make these repairs.

And they just don't want to do that.

Cuyahoga County Executive Chris Ronayne delivered the State of the County address on Thursday.

While he mentioned the county's accomplishments during his first term, the current financial challenges were also a major focus, as well as the new Health and Human Services levy.

Matt, how is Ronan responding to residents who are concerned about taxes?

Well, he wouldn't make a no new taxes pledge in public.

Said that, you know, and this is how he is because there's an HHS increase, Health and Human Services increase on the ballot this year.

And basically said that, you know, he believes that sometimes the county government's going to have to go to residents and ask them to help out their neighbors who need some help.

And that, that is something that, that Cuyahoga County residents have always done.

And so he's saying that, you know, you might have to do that again.

He's not ruling that out.

And, you know, I think that the county is hoping that with this, that with this HHS levy, if it passes and possibly with also with some cuts, that that'll cover it for the next few, few years at least.

And Ronayne seems optimistic about the county's future despite the financial issues.

Yeah, what he said is that kind of the county is ready to grow, that it's ready to that there is kind of the infrastructure in place and obviously some open space for people to move into Cuyahoga County.

And it seems like, you know, he's basically saying that that is the best way forward to kind of get taxes to be leveled off is just to get more, more people to move in.

This is an election year for Ronayne, correct, Matt?

Yes, he doesn't have a, a sort of a formal challenger, just, just a write-in challenger.

Okay, and the name of that write-in challenger is Christopher Litwinowicz.

Thank you.

I do hope that I pronounced that right, Christopher.

I apologize if I did not.

Christopher Litwinowicz.

Now, from a budget shortfall to a nursing shortage, the Medina County Career Center has launched a new training program to help address Northeast Ohio's nurse shortage.

The program will train students to become licensed practical nurses.

Conor, why was this program created?

Yeah, there's a national shortage of nurses and also locally here in Northeast Ohio.

And like more than half of Ohio nurses in 2024 said their patient care unit wasn't consistently adequately staffed.

And there's local needs too.

In Medina County, for example, there's an aging population and long-term care facilities.

The population of residents over 65 is expected to grow by 40% by 2050.And we're seeing this in a handful of counties in Northeast Ohio in general, Lake County as well, places where folks, you know, are attractive for them to settle down and live.

And, you know, actually just in a story I did today about Mentor Schools, they're talking about, you know, aging population as well.

So.

Okay.

And how is this program different from a traditional nursing track where someone might decide they would like to be a nurse without any benefits or encouragement?

Yeah, so there's this is an 11-month curriculum, so it's quicker than usual, and it's training students to become licensed practical nurses, LPNs, and it's allowing them to enter the healthcare workforce more quickly than usual.

They're going to be doing clinical training at local hospitals, so they're getting that on-the-job experience also.

And we've just seen generally around the region with higher ed programs and others that there is a hunger for programs like this that really get you into the workforce quicker, especially for a, you know, a career field like this, like nursing and the healthcare field, which is, you know, a big deal around here.

Okay, the big question, who can take part in this program and how much will it cost?

It's free for anyone between 18 and 24 who graduated from a Medina County school.

And they say it's already drawn really strong interest.

Okay.

What do we know about Kent State University's College of Nursing program?

They've had a record year for enrollment, as I understand it.

Yeah, absolutely.

They have more than 1,600 undergraduate nursing students on campus this fall.

It's the most in 10 years.

And they say that they've been accepting students who may not have completed every prerequisite for the program in like chemistry and biology, as long as their GPA meets the standards.

So they're working to kind of bring those students up to speed and get them into the classroom as soon as possible.

Very important profession, certainly.

We'll go back to D.C.

politics for a moment.

U.S.

Senator Bernie Moreno is suggesting he'll propose a federal tax that would offset state and local tax breaks for data centers.

He says the goal is to stop taxpayer money from subsidizing the facilities.

Karen, how would Moreno's proposal work?

Well, he says this is federal legislation that would impose a 100% federal tax on any state or local tax incentive given to a data center.

And that would, in his words, effectively eliminate all the financial benefits of those tax incentives.

Now, the question here is, what exactly is a tax incentive?

I mean, is it a tax break?

Is it, you know, a tax credit?

What exactly is a tax incentive?

And also, how would that be calculated?

Would that be calculated at the federal level?

Would it be calculated at the state level?

Uh, what if those 2 numbers don't agree?

So there's some real questions about how this would work.

And I mean, obviously, the concern about data centers getting tax breaks when people are really looking at data centers now as driving up their electric bills and all this sort of opposition that they have toward data centers.

Now, the idea that they get tax breaks and tax credits and incentives and that sort of thing really upsets a lot of people.

And Moreno is definitely trying to key in on that.

But there are still some real questions about what this would actually do.

What would this final legislation actually look like?

Karen, remind us, here in the state of Ohio, how much money has the state given up in tax breaks related to data centers?

Well, a lot.

And some of these deals go way back.

And that's something we found in this whole data center discussion, is that some of these companies Amazon, Meta, Google they are benefiting from deals that they struck back in the 2010s when Republican John Kasich was governor.

And so Ohio has provided about $2.3 billion in tax incentives to data center projects.

Now, we also had this data center tax break where they would get a sales tax break on construction costs.

Costs.

That was, you know, obviously a big part of this.

And so there's a lot of money involved.

But some of these deals just can't be changed because they were struck quite a while ago and they don't expire until like 2058.

Karen, as we mentioned before, current Senator Jon Husted is running for election to the seat that he was appointed to.

What does he think about Moreno's idea and the cost of data centers in Ohio?

Well, we haven't heard from him on Moreno's idea specifically.

He has said that he supports federal legislation that would protect consumers from paying for energy infrastructure needed by data centers.

And that's another part of the whole data center discussion is, and we've seen it in the governor's race especially, where the idea of data centers providing their own electricity, their own generating, generation essentially.And what would that look like?You know, if a data center has to build its own energy-producing plant right next to it, what is that gonna be?

Is that gonna be a natural gas plant?

Is it gonna be a small nuclear plant?

Is it gonna be wind and solar?

You know, these are real questions about requiring data centers to bring that energy, what is the form that would be acceptable to people when it's going to be near them in their neighborhood, in their community?

Thank you, Karen.

We do know that Sherrod Brown on data centers told the Statehouse News Bureau earlier in August that he has made it clear that he believes John Husted is the point man for the more than 200 new data centers in the state of Ohio, referred to that $2.4 billion tax break here in the state of Ohio.

As Karen mentioned, some of these deals do go back a long time, and archived news release from about a decade ago does show that Sherrod Brown did celebrate Amazon Web Services' investment in Central Ohio.

We know typically the Democratic Party has not been incredibly vocal criticizing the data center industry.

The industry has created short-term construction jobs, and many of those jobs do hire union labor.

We'll turn to Westlake now, where Westlake City Council approved a temporary moratorium on new data centers this week.

Matt, why did Westlake City Council make move?

It's similar to why a lot of places are doing it, is that they looked at these new, very large, often data centers, and looked at their zoning code and said, we don't really have a cat we don't think we have a category in our zoning code that kind of determines where things can be built and, and what kind of rules they have to follow depending on the category.

We don't think that these fall into anything that we have already.

So, but we need to look closer at it and to kind of figure out if we need to come up with a new description to cover data centers.

How long will the moratorium last?

It's in place for 6 months, and then it can be extended for 3 months twice.

Okay, we'll keep an eye on that.

Thank you, Matt.

We do have plenty more to talk about, including how dozens of missing children were rescued in a massive collaborative law enforcement effort, what's happening with Lakewood City School District's school consolidation plan, and who will be joining Cleveland Heights native and Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce in the owner's box at Cleveland Guardians games.

First, here is Sound of Ideas coordinating producer Drew Maziasz with the preview of what we'll bring you next week on The Sound of Ideas on 89.7 WKSU.

Hello, Drew.

Hey, Stephanie.

Here's a look at for The Sound of Ideas next week.

Monday, we talk to a social worker whose new book looks at her experiences working in Ohio's juvenile detention facilities and the problems she's experienced there.

And we'll preview a new documentary that looks at voting accessibility in the city of Cleveland.

Tuesday, we'll talk about the resurgence of legacy media with our Kabir Bhatia and Annie Nickoloff from Cleveland Magazine, and why record players and VHS tapes are seeing a resurgence in popularity, and my conversation with Ian Bogost, a staff writer for The Atlantic, about how to live a more gratifying life.

Wednesday on the program, we'll talk to some Cleveland Clinic doctors about innovative ways to address chronic pain as well as those who are suffering from chronic pain.

Also that hour, a book that looks back at Cleveland's mafia history.

Thursday, we bring you the menu and we'll talk to some local chefs who are utilizing ingredients from the West Side Market for their plates at some area restaurants.

And now back to you in the studio.

Thank you, Drew.

You're back with the Sound of Ideas Reporters Roundtable from Ideastream Public Media.

I'm Ideastream's host of the Sound of Ideas, Stephanie Haney.

In today for executive editor Mike McIntyre, I'm here at the Idea Center with Ideastream reporters Conor Morris and Matt Richmond, and Ideastream Statehouse News Bureau Chief Karen Kasler is joining us from our Columbus studio.

A reminder before we get back to the show that you can take our Ideastream news quiz.

You can find it at our website at ideastream.org/quiz.

Now, some good news here.

79 children reported missing across Ohio were found during a month-long law enforcement operation.

This was led by the U.S.

Marshal It was the largest operation in the state's history.

Matt, can you tell us anything about the age ranges of the rescued children and the circumstances under which these children had been declared missing?

The kids were as young as 6 and old and as old as 17, and it wasn't clear exactly how many were under each category, but some were missing because of suspected trafficking, others because of abuse, because of abuse or neglect or because they ran away.

And this was a collaborative effort among many agencies.

What agencies participated in this?

So it was kind of run by the, by the U.S.

Marshals and then other federal agencies, state and local law enforcement, and a, uh, they also interestingly had a survivor of, of an, of a kind of a famous abduction in Cleveland working them.

Familiar name there, Amanda Berry.

Yeah, apparently Amanda Berry talked with, you know, some of the officers and kind of gave them advice on, on how to care for the kids when they went and found them.

Sure, sure.

Moving to the west side of Cleveland, the Lakewood City School District Board voted on Tuesday to repurpose Lincoln Elementary School and turn it into a consolidated preschool.

This might sound familiar.

This is the exact plan that was approved by the school almost one year ago.

As of now, the decision is set to take effect at the start of next school year.

Conor, how did the revote shake out?

Why is the board saying they voted this way again?

Yeah, so there was a lawsuit filed that basically tried to halt this decision, and it was around the board allegedly violating public meetings laws.

And so they went back to because of the settlement, they went back and reconsidered again and revoted on this, and the board says, you know, we still need to do this.

We have a much lower K through five, you know, younger kid population because enrollments dropped quite a bit by about 500 students.

And so they say, this is a smart idea.

We're gonna even out classrooms.

We've got, you know, some classrooms with so many students and some classes with very few.

This has been very immensely unpopular with a lot of parents though.

They've protested and said, this is really gonna throw a wrench into to our travel and for kids walking, there might be some safety issues with more kids traveling further in the city.

So it's been a very controversial topic.

Conor, can you tell us who will be most impacted by these changes?

Yeah, it'll be kids that went to Lincoln Elementary.

That's the one school that they are turning into a consolidated preschool.

And then there's also some kids in special ed and gifted programs that are going to need to be going a bit further now.

And also preschool students, they're all going to have to go to this one new consolidated consolidated school instead of at preschool offerings at their individual schools across the city.

How much does it seem this will impact students' commute to schools?

It could, according to one analysis, it could increase their transit time significantly.

The district says not so much.

This should really only increase their walk time by a little bit, and this is a walking district, so they don't really have school buses that are taking kids to school normally, so they're a bit of a rarity there in Yeah, it was wild for me to realize that living in Lakewood that there are no school buses on the street.

I grew up with school buses everywhere.

That was down in Canton in Stark County, though, different place.

Conor, tell us about the law related to charter schools that the board said it had to consider.

Yeah, so there is currently law on the books that says if your school building is not being used for education purposes or at like a really low level, that you should give it up to a charter school.

School.

They the state legislature is looking at beefing that up quite a bit.

And so the district has said they're a little bit worried about this law potentially because they do have some buildings that they argue are less than 60% full, which is kind of the threshold that the state is looking at.

And what does Lakewood Mayor Meghan George say about this?

She's been an opponent of this plan.

She said that we really need to take more time to look at this, and she said that this really could affect the city's walkability.

Okay, staying in Lakewood, FirstEnergy has laid out a plan to improve the power grid in the city following pressure from the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio.

This was after PUCO found that FirstEnergy was probably non-compliant with safety and maintenance requirements in the area.

Karen, what is FirstEnergy promising to do?

Well, they've got the first of 2 new transformers is now in service.

It's ahead of schedule.

Another one is expected to come online by the end of the year.

Here.

And this all comes from the PUCO's investigation of what was happening in Lakewood with all these power outages.

They found that some electrical infrastructure was being cooled by lawn sprinklers.

So there was a real concern about the aging structures here.

And the PUCO was very concerned.

They were going to talk about a $3 million fine here because of what they said was this, this lack of investment here in fixing these older electrical infrastructure pieces.

We do know that PUCO had said that the utility could face a forfeiture of more than $3 million following an investigation into outages that had occurred in late June and mid-July in the Lakewood area.

So we'll be following exactly what happens there in Lakewood.

Now, in Mentor, the school district is asking voters to approve a new operating levy in November after a similar request failed in May.

Conor, Mentor has made millions of cuts, millions of dollars of cuts to their budget, but not enough to stabilize the operating budget.

Yeah, about $6.6 million so far.

And that's eliminating positions, freezing administrative pay, And they say if the levy fails, they're going to have to cut another $14 million, which is quite a bit.

They are going to be consolidating schools.

We've been talking about this a lot lately to try to save money.

But it's really interesting.

The debate online and elsewhere in Mentor has been it's been pretty robust, I would say.

A lot of these kind of culture war issues are kind of coming home to roost now, almost in terms of people say they don't like the district's past decisions and they think the district needs to to be more efficient and cutting back more.

And so there's just a lot of back and forth debate right now over there in Mentor.

How much of this debate is really about Mentor versus the way Ohio funds public schools in general?

That's a big part of the debate as well.

And the district says we wouldn't have to need a levy if the state was not funding schools adequately.

So they argue that funding has not kept up with inflation and rising costs.

Okay.

In higher education news, Ohio is getting a $50 million influx of funding to help low-income and first-generation students go to college, one of only 2 states to get this 5-year grant.

At an event, Governor Mike DeWine pushed back against a proposal to consolidate or eliminate some of Ohio's public universities.

Karen, how will the grant be used to help students?

Well, DeWine says that's not clear yet because he was just making this announcement, noting that Ohio is the largest of the 2 states that's getting the grant here.

But this is money that would go to middle and high schools to embed some counselors and others who were trying to help kids access college and help more kids get into colleges and universities.

So we're still uncertain exactly how that money will be distributed, but it's a, it's a lot.

It's $50 million over 5 years.

We'll be keeping an eye on that.

Several Ohio colleges and universities received failing grades from the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, or FIRE, for their campus free speech climate.

3 Northeast Ohio schools were included in the rankings: Case Western Reserve, Kent State, and Oberlin College.

College.

Conor, where did these 3 Northeast Ohio schools fall in the rankings?

Yeah, Case Western Reserve ranked, uh, 121st with a D- grade.

Kent State ranked 189th with an F. And then Oberlin College ranked 194th, also with an F. And it's important to note that this is just based on like surveys with students essentially, uh, and, and over half of the colleges and universities that they reviewed got a failing grade.

So it's a pretty brutal metric.

And all of these colleges and universities would say, hold up, we are a bastion of free speech.

We, you know, students are allowed to protest, and, and we are having robust debates every day in the college classroom.

So they would push back quite a bit on that, I think.

Okay.

Can you tell us how the rating was determined and the number of students surveyed?

Yeah, there are about 62,000 students that were surveyed by FIRE for these rankings.

Um, and they were talking about, you know, discussing complex topics, controversial Topics like the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was difficult to discuss openly.

President Donald Trump, conservative activist Charlie Kirk, abortion, things of this nature.

They said that it was difficult to bring these up in open conversation and have a really robust open conversation about it.

Let's talk about the Guardians.

Cleveland Browns cornerback Denzel Ward is now part owner of the Guardians.

He is a Northeast Ohio native.

He joins Travis Kelce in the ownership group.

He'll be welcome on September.

15th at a Guardians game against the White Sox.

Matt, just tell us a little bit about Denzel Ward being a hometown Ohio guy.

So he's from Macedonia.

He went to Nordonia High School and then Ohio State, and he was drafted by the Browns in 2018, 4th overall.

And he's sort of a mainstay of the defense at this point.

Matt, can you tell us about his foundational work here in Northeast Ohio?

Sure.

So his father died of cardiac arrest, and he founded a or Denzel Ward founded a foundation called Make Them Know Your Name, and they focus on heart disease, and they campaign to get heart defibrillators on all campuses, on all public school and charter school campuses in the state.

All right, thank you for that, Matt.

Final note for our foodies: the Michelin Guide is coming to the Great Lakes region.

We know that includes Cleveland, and it was announced this week that the first awards ceremony will take place in Detroit.

That be in April.

That's all the time we have today for the Reporters Roundtable.

My thanks to Karen Kasler, Matt Richmond, and Conor Morris here from Ideastream.

If you missed any part of today's show, you can hear a rebroadcast tonight at 9 on 89.7 WKSU.

You can also find it on any podcast app and the Ideastream Public Media YouTube page.

To get the last word on today's topics, you can email soi@ideastream.org and find us on Instagram @TheSoundOfIdeas I'm Stephanie Haney in for Mike McIntyre, who will be back next Friday.

Thanks for listening and watching.

Have a great weekend, everyone And now our closing song for today in honor of the announcement of the Michelin Awards and also the Italian dinner I'll be eating with my husband in honor of our first wedding anniversary on Sunday.

Here's Billy Joel with Scenes from an Italian Restaurant.