(thoughtful music) - Stadium repair and renovation costs are adding up for city and county taxpayers.

A bill aimed at changing the direction of higher education in Ohio has passed the Senate, and City Council voted to spend $10 million to help the aging West Side market in Cleveland.

But is it enough?

Ideas is next.

(inspiring music) Hello and welcome to Ideas.

I'm Mike McIntyre.

Thanks for joining us.

The Cleveland Cavaliers say they need $28 million for additional upgrades to recently renovated Rocket Mortgage Fieldhouse.

The public is on the hook for the cash, and for upgrades of Progressive Field and Brown Stadium, where a renovation plan is going to come with a big price tag.

The Ohio Senate passed Senate Bill 83, which supporters say will counter perceived liberal bias on college campuses.

Opponents say it's an assault on academic freedom.

The 60% threshold amendment proposal will now be known as State Issue One.

Ballot language has been approved.

The planned August election though is being challenged in court.

And Cleveland City Council decided on $10 million in federal stimulus money for renovations to the West Side market.

But it's less than the mayor wanted, and less than what's needed to fix the aging structure, putting lofty plans for the site in doubt.

Cleveland is a landlord there too.

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

Joining me this week from Ideastream Public Media, deputy editor for Engaged Journalism, Stephanie Czeklinski, and Senior Reporter Kabir Bhatia.

In Columbus, Ohio Public Radio State House news bureau chief Karen Kasler.

Let's get ready to round table.

The Cavaliers this week said they need $28 million to upgrade and replace elevators, escalators, and broadcast equipment at Rocket Mortgage Fieldhouse, which underwent a massive renovation that included a new glass facade less than five years ago.

The request comes as the Browns are planning an extensive renovation of their stadium that some estimates put close to a billion dollars and the Guardians are in the beginning stages of a multi-year, $200+ million renovation.

Cleveland and Cuyahoga County are on the hook.

All right, Kabir, that's a big intro to really a story I think we're gonna be talking about.

And by the way, I think we had this conversation in 2017.

We're having it again now.

This is a continuing thing when you own a sports venue and want to keep a sports team, I know the Guardians had a major extension on their lease, and part of that is, okay, part of the money we're paying you is gonna be used to pay for these upgrades.

Gateway has already said it doesn't have the ability to cover the requests from the Cavs.

So they're gonna have to find new ways to get public money, not just the sin tax.

- Well, they're gonna have to find new ways to get money period for this thing I think because there's pools of money set aside for each of the three teams, each of the three facilities, and they're supposed to use that between now and 2034.

That's how voters set it up.

And they're saying, for the Cavs at least, you've used up most of that.

There's only about 10 million left in that pool.

And the Cavs are saying, we don't have enough.

That's not gonna be enough to cover what we need.

We need elevators, we need broadcast equipment, as you said.

And a lot of the social media buzz, the comment that you just read, I've seen similar things, but added on to that, an additional line of, and it's a team that hasn't brought home a championship in X number of years.

- [McIntyre] I'm not sure how fair that is.

- I don't know how fair that is either, but you know, and certainly the Browns have been selling out for how many seasons in a row and they haven't done as well even as the other two teams.

But looking all at all that, looking at the big picture, yeah, as you said, there's not gonna be enough money for this.

And you have to remember with the sin tax, it's dependent on alcohol, which it seems as though that's selling just as well.

- [McIntyre] We're doing a good job with the booze.

- But the cigarettes portion, as I've seen in the arts coverage, 'cause it relies on the cigarettes as well, that's been going down and down and down for decades.

And you have less and less people, less and less percentage of the population smoking.

- Narrowing in specifically on the $28 million for the Rocket Mortgage Fieldhouse, Stephanie, renovations, major renovations were done in 2019.

More than half of the $185 million price tag came from the Cavaliers, but a lot of it came from the public too.

The question is, did they not know at that point, hey, maybe we should also do elevators and escalators.

- I mean, people are certainly asking that question.

It's impossible to know, you know, what they knew and when.

But you know, if an elevator or a piece of hardware or infrastructure has a life period, then you should know when you installed it and when that safety, you know, period is about up.

- And I believe they've said that those are the originals.

So they're almost 30 years old.

- [Czeklinski] Right.

- Right, so by the way, I wanted to note that Sound of Ideas just last week had a great discussion on stadium funding and renovations and all that stuff.

Got the experts in, so if you wanna listen back to a little bit more information as we continue this conversation.

We had Joe Scalzo from Crane's Cleveland Business, Mark Rosentroub, who is with the University of Michigan.

And of course our Abby Marshall was there as well.

So interesting conversation about all of that.

We talk about the money.

I do want to note that the teams don't not pay.

So Nick Costell in Signal had a really interesting piece where he was adding up how much the city has paid for Brown Stadium since its building.

$350 million is what it comes down to.

The Browns say that since the Haslams bought the team in 2012, they've spent $154 million on stadium improvements.

So it's not like we're saying nobody is paying anything from the sports teams.

The question that seems to be coming up Kabir is can we afford it?

Even if there's an example that says yes, it's good to have major league sports teams, when you look at the problems in the city, the money that needs to be spent on these types of issues, can you afford it?

- Right, well you just mentioned earlier, West Side Market and the amount going for that is less than I think a lot of people would like.

Some of these funds that are coming from the city and county are potentially earmarked from the city and county for something like a stadium or stadium upgrades could be going to a project like that, not to mention things, you know, we could go on and on, we could fill the whole show just listing the things the city could be spending the money on.

So that's definitely a conversation.

But then you look at the flip side, all of the businesses that rely on having these sports teams here, having these events every year, and bringing in the dollars for that, whether you're talking about bars and restaurants, you know, hotels, people coming from the opposing cities and stuff.

So it's a delicate balance.

And I think as you pointed out, the teams are paying some portion, but should they be paying more I think is the big question and case is being made saying that, yeah, they probably should.

- And these numbers, we're talking about $28 million, is literally a drop in a bucket for these guys.

When you talk about, and it's a drop in the bucket when we look at what things are gonna cost.

I wanna talk the Browns renovation that's coming up.

We've heard at one point they were gonna talk about getting a whole new stadium, well over a billion dollars.

Now we're talking about renovations that could come to that kind of of money, right?

Stephanie, the mayor in Cleveland has said no to using the city's general fund for that, but "there needs to be creativity" is what he said in terms of finding money.

What does that even mean?

- I mean, who, it's anyone's guess, right?

But he said that during the State of the City, which was last month when he leaned into his policy, which seems to be focusing more on public safety and jobs and housing.

You know, he has proposed using 20 million in ARPA funds to invest in lakefront development, and certainly the stadium is, you know, in a lot of ways a part of that.

But where the money's gonna come from, you know, who knows?

I think a lot of municipalities across the country are starting to ask themselves that question now that, you know, they got that big infusion of ARPA funding.

They spent it on all sorts of things that, you know, were needed in their areas, and that was a one time thing.

So now we're going back to the reality that we have to generate funds to do things ourselves.

- Karen, having professional sports teams helps drive tourism for cities and is a priority for leaders like Governor DeWine who helped get involved in the Progressive Field lease extension, which included, as we mentioned, that renovation deal where the team is throwing in some money, but a majority of that is coming from what they're paying for the lease, which is essentially public money.

But when we talk about that, the state has also chipped in.

What about the importance from the state level of being a major league state?

- Well, I think certainly there are state lawmakers who see that and have asked for that money.

For instance, the House budget includes a $62 million in state money for that land bridge that would connect the mall with Cleveland Brown Stadium, and other lakefront attractions.

But there's also money that is requested for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, which is another area of tourism.

And then of course you've got Progressive Field, you've got Rocket Mortgage Fieldhouse, all of these entities as well as other entities around the state, Columbus Cruise Stadium, where the Bengals play, I don't even know the name of that place.

You know, Great American ballpark for the Reds.

All of these facilities that all want money.

And so state officials will tell you, of course, that there is an, a limited pot to draw from.

And trying to negotiate with all these things and still paying attention to everybody can be really challenging.

- I have to point out that there's also a limited pot.

I did a story on this last year, if anyone wants to go look at it online, about hockey teams and how we don't have a hockey team.

There is a limited pool of advertisers.

advertising dollars for these team, and if one of them leaves this area, we might not get a replacement as we did with the Browns 25 years ago.

- We do have a hockey team.

- An NHL hockey team, excuse me.

- [McIntyre] I just wanna make that clear.

We have an excellent hockey team.

- I mean, in Columbus we've got Nationwide Arena and a lot of these places do have dual purpose.

I mean, Nationwide Arena hosts concerts and other things.

But yeah, when teams want that kind of upgrade to do elevators at Rocket Mortgage Fieldhouse or whatever, you know, these are things that, these are important requests I guess, but they have to be weighed against other important requests that are coming from around the state.

- And yet it doesn't seem to stop new stadiums from being built, renovations from happening.

In Columbus, where you are, Karen, they just built a new soccer stadium for the Columbus Crew, also owned by the Haslams.

- Yeah, $20 million from the state for Lower.com Arena, Fieldhouse, whatever it is.

Yeah, I'm sorry, I'm not a soccer fan, I apologize.

But yeah, I mean, it's all of these different venues and it all adds up over time.

And you know, when you were introducing this whole segment and the whole idea of Rocket Mortgage Fieldhouse needing renovations, gosh, we just did that.

It feels like we just did some of these things.

And I think taxpayers do get frustrated when, yes, there is maintenance involved, but we're talking about big money maintenance that costs a lot of money for even people to go and experience it, and a lot of people can't even afford to.

- Right, and that's where I think the discussion is coming at this point.

We kind of know the Brown Stadium thing is coming, don't know how much it's going to cost.

The Progressive Field thing was tied in with an extension of a lease, although often people are like, listen, the idea that a team is going to leave is insane.

And yet the Browns did leave Cleveland, but this one Karen was timing.

You just saw this arena be remade into something completely different, this glass facade, all of these improvements and then less than five years later, we need 28 million bucks.

- And also there, there's the element of these are really, really rich team owners who really don't seem to have a whole lot of obligation besides that contract to stay.

I mean, for instance, here with the Columbus Crew, there was an annual rent payment that was due for $10 and was late.

It wasn't paid until media reports said, "Hey, this $10 annual rate rent payment is late."

So I think that there are certainly a group of people, I don't mean an organized group, I mean just people in general who are frustrated with all of these, all of this money going to this.

And yet where is our guarantee that the teams will stay, that they will contribute to the community and that we can all participate in this?

- Remember the old Municipal Stadium?

It was almost 60 years old, it was falling apart, but it was packed when the Browns Bernie Kosar era, late eighties, early nineties.

So I think you have to look at all of those things.

And Rocket Mortgage, I'm not trying to be a cheerleader, but it is one of the most heavily booked.

(inspiring music) - The Ohio Senate passed Senate Bill 83 this week, also known as the Higher Education Enhancement Act.

Sponsored by Republican Jerry Sereno of Kirkland, the bill supporters say will address concerns that "woke" or liberal bias on campuses and in classrooms is stifling conservative viewpoints.

Opponents of the bill say it's an assault on academic freedom.

Karen, as expected, the bill passed on party lines, but there were a few Republicans who voted against it.

- This bill has a lot of Republican support, but not exclusively.

I mean, this week there was a testimony from a Lake County commissioner who is also a law professor at Case I believe and is considered, he calls himself the most conservative law professor in the state of Ohio, and he is against this, saying that really if you wanna add more conservative faculty onto college campuses, you need to hire more conservative faculty.

You can't blame it on what's happening here.

And that this bill will do the opposite.

It will chill free speech, it won't help the cause.

And that's really the question here, is how does a piece of legislation make some people feel better about expressing their opinions?

And some people feel like their opinions are being chilled and the specifics of this bill of course, it bans most mandatory diversity, equity, and inclusion training, bans faculty from striking, it makes some changes like that, but the whole idea of encouraging intellectual diversity on campus, I don't know how you do that through legislation.

And I've asked Senator Sereno and it just, it feels like this is an effort to try to do something that's really hard to measure and hard to prove.

- Is it something that applies just to state colleges and universities or would it... - [Kasler] Yes it does.

- Okay, but not private colleges?

- And that was one of the points.

Initially it was proposed to a apply to private colleges that get state funding as well, but then that was taken out, and that was one of the points that was made by this conservative law professor.

And I'm not saying his name because I can't remember it and I can't pronounce it either, so I apologize to him.

But he was saying, you know, if this is such a great idea, why not expand this to every college and university?

Why not make this universal if it's such a great idea and it will improve life on campus so much?

And you know, I think it's pretty clear that this has Republican momentum.

But when I spoke to Governor Mike DeWine about this yesterday and asked him, are you concerned about anything in here, he brought up one part of it, which is about shortening the terms of university trustees, which he said will end up giving more power to university administrators, and so he's concerned about that in there.

(inspiring music) - State issue one.

That's what voters will see on their ballot when they're asked to decide whether to increase the threshold for approving future constitutional amendments to 60% of the vote.

State issue one also sets a higher bar for collecting signatures for an amendment to qualify for a ballot.

A lawsuit filed last week, however, seeks to stop the August election.

We saw the ballot board, Karen, this week approved the language along party lines.

Democrats on the ballot board don't agree with the language.

They say first it's not detailed enough.

And secondly, it's got the word elevate that sounds like they think a positive word and one that kind of promotes the idea that a yes vote is a good idea here.

- Yeah, and the language that you see when you go to vote or when you get your ballot to vote on it, it's a summary.

It's not the full constitutional amendment.

And so the question was, of course, you know who wrote this, which as I understand it, it was the Secretary of State's office who wrote this summary.

And the title of it is, does it include the word elevate.

I believe the title is "elevating the standard to qualify for and pass any constitutional amendment," which describes that, but they don't say in this that the elevation is from a simple majority to 60%.

It just says 60%.

It doesn't say that right now it's a simple majority to pass.

And it just, Democrats have said that this is vague language.

It doesn't really outline the magnific, the hugeness of the changes that will potentially be made here.

The magnitude, there's the word I wanted.

But then Republicans say, no, it's absolutely fair.

And you can't, you know, put a whole bunch of words on the ballot.

You have to bere brief and if people wanna read the amendment, they can read the amendment.

It's online.

You know, we're gonna see an awful lot of this.

Vote yes campaign, the vote no campaign, this is all coming.

And of course there is a lawsuit that would potentially stop this August 8th election, which we're still waiting for the Ohio Supreme Court to set some dates on that.

(inspiring music) - Cleveland isn't just a landlord for sports venues.

It owns the West Side Market, which is in need of a lot of maintenance and repair.

Cleveland City Council decided to spend $10 million to fund infrastructure improvements, far less than the mayor originally asked for.

The money will come from the city's share of American Rescue Plan Act dollars.

Stephanie, the 10 million isn't what the mayor proposed and it's not what tenants say the market needs in terms of upgrades.

It's the same issue here.

You're the landlord, it needs fixing.

Fix it.

- Right, yeah, the Bibb administration proposed 20 million.

So it's half of what he proposed.

The estimated repairs are around $33 million.

And again, I think it's important to put this into context because when the West Side Market was built in 1912, it costs $735,000 to build, which is about 22.9 million in today's dollars.

So it needs more in repairs now than it cost to build originally.

But you know, 10 million is what they say we have.

- So that money will be spent to fix some of the infrastructure problems there.

Vendors are saying that they're leaving as problems mount.

The city says it has a responsibility to be a better landlord as it requires that the property owners, but here's what the city saying, we should be better landlords, but we're only gonna spend 10 million 'cause council didn't give us what we wanted.

And what you hear the vendors are saying is, listen, I don't care about all this bickering back and forth.

The fact of the matter is stuff's not getting done.

But there's also the argument of, as we had with stadiums, there's a lot of other needs.

- Right.

I mean, it must be very frustrating to have a governmental agency be your landlord, right?

It's a lot more of a complicated process to get things approved.

And then also there's a lot more people involved who have a lot different interests.

But the infrastructure problems there are deeply frustrating for the tenants.

The last elevator went out last week.

Stalls needed to close because they couldn't get their wares into the selling area of the building.

It's already kind of vacant in a lot of areas.

Like the produce hall is half empty right now.

And the indoor hall where they have all the meats and the breads and things, that'd at about 22% vacancy.

- Yeah, I got, I gotta say the 78% that's there is awesome.

- [Czelinksi] Oh absolutely.

- I love going there and it's a terrific place to frequent, but there is those big problems that they're having.

You wonder how sustainable it is.

The new nonprofits that's gonna be taking over the market soon has hopes of turning it into something on par with Pike Place in Seattle and Finlay Market in Cincinnati.

But they would, those kind of plans would seem, to be in jeopardy if you don't get the basics fixed first.

- Yeah, the chair of the new nonprofit said that basically like that's out of reach if they don't have the funds to do it, and that makes sense.

Certainly, I think it's important to point out too that it's so amazing just as it is, having been somewhat neglected for, you know, a number of years, it could be something, something amazing, but, you know, the process of setting priorities is something that has to happen.

- And what are we seeing more and more of built around there?

Apartments.

- [Czelinksi] Right.

- Young people who wanna walk to something like this.

So it seems unfathomable that this thing, this jewel right in the middle because there's really no other places to get food, fresh produce.

It's gonna end up being a food desert unless they do something about this.

- There's a Dave's Market.

- [Bhatia] Yeah, the Dave's market on the other side.

- But the idea being, you're right, I mean the Intro was built right across the way with high end apartments.

- [Bhatia] Yeah.

- Some of them very high end, the one at the very top that has, you can almost reach out and touch the tower.

You wouldn't believe what the monthly is on that.

- [Bhatia] Yeah.

- But the idea is you do have people with means that live right across the street and likely would frequent the market.

It just, you know, you gotta, you gotta keep it.

- [Bhatia] There's the buildings on the other side.

- But that's the eterny arc, that's the eterny, eternal, now I've got Karen's problem.

- [McIntyre] Hey wait.

- [Kasler] Hey!

- [McIntyre] I know, not fair.

- In Cleveland, right?

Like, we are segregated by race, by income, and so when you look at the different neighborhoods and you say this is a neighborhood that needs investment, are you looking at an Ohio City where, you know, things are going pretty well for people financially?

Or are you looking at different neighborhood for public dollars.

- Right, well you go down West 25th South from there, there's not much, but those people would be able to come up and hopefully use the West side.

They could walk there.

So that would be, I would hope great.

I would like to point out, as we keep mentioning, Pike's Place always comes into this conversation.

The year that Pike's Place became a non-profit, got managed by non-profit, is the year Starbucks was founded.

I don't know if that's coincidence.

It was founded right there at the market.

Maybe we've got another Starbucks brewing here if we can get this thing going.

(inspiring music) - Mayor Justin Bibb and Cuyahoga County executive Chris Roan are among the leaders making the inaugural direct flight from Cleveland Hopkins International Airport to Dublin, Ireland Friday.

Taxpayers are paying the public officials fares for the trip, which is billed as an economic development opportunity.

Stephanie, the route to Dublin is the latest try to direct Europe flight that so far has had less than stellar results in Cleveland.

- Yeah, there have been other attempts.

In 2018, I actually took a flight from Cleveland to Paris and I went through Reykjavík and it was awesome.

- [Bhatia] But that lasted like less than a year.

- Yeah, I got in like two days before it stopped.

It was fantastic, and it was very affordable.

So the service was wonderful, but there just wasn't enough there to support it.

- What helps the there in this case is Lingus negotiate a guarantee to help take some of the risk off.

So they make a guaranteed amount of money.

The business community here said, we're gonna make it up, we'll make sure it happens.

- Right, that's Cleveland, Cuyahoga County, the Greater Cleveland Partnership and Jobs Ohio.

They threw in $12 million in guaranteed revenue that's supposed to cushion things over the course of the next three years.

- Mitzi, by the way, weighs in again.

She says, "Hearing about Chris Roan and Mayor Bibb's trip to Dublin yesterday at taxpayer's expense made me angry, very angry.

I am not voting for these people to spend my money on junkets."

So there's also that issue.

They're saying that, listen, this is, we're outreaching, we're gonna try to get Irish travelers to want to come to Cleveland, but it's being seen by a lot as just another four day free trip for politicians.

- Seems like, I mean, and I'm not saying that, but it seems like to the public, the optics maybe aren't the best.

'Cause it seems to me like we've had a lot of Irish people come to Northeast Ohio, just from what I've observed, I don't know.

It seems like there's a great many of them here.

So I don't know that we have really an issue with that.

They did say like three quarters of the flights are booked of people visiting Ireland, as opposed to people from Ireland coming over here.

So they might be trying to shore that up a little.

But to your point about the Iceland flights, they had two competing airlines for some reason.

That didn't help.

The 737 Max, people were nervous about that.

That didn't help.

This new Airbus that they're using at Air Lingus is excellent.

And there was the flights to Paris and London that were direct about 15 years ago, and that was right at the recession.

So those didn't work out either.

But I think Air Lingus, if you go on there and look, most of the economy flights are sold out, but the executive class, they're somewhere up there, $3000-4,000, and these are the directs.

There are connecting flights through Chicago, which aren't as much.

(inspiring music) - Anyone who works at Ideastream has probably heard me say everyone needs an editor.

And yet mistakes happen.

On a script, it's as easy as fixing it with a red pen.

Online, the delete key is your friend.

But what if a spelling error appears on a highway sign?

The Ohio Department of Transportation new sign for Stan Hywet Hall and Gardens in Akron got one thing wrong, the spelling of Stan Hywet.

It has one T, the sign has two.

A University of Akron professor notified ODOT on social media a week after the signs were up.

It'll be fixed with brown overlays to cover up the extra letter.

One T, and it's also, by the way, the home was originally built for the Siberling family, one of the founders of Goodyear.

It's one of Akron's most well-known tourist attractions and it's gonna host the Antiques Roadshow next month.

Hopefully they get the spelling correct before the roadshow.

- We'll be there, I hope so.

But thousands and thousands of people drove by that sign.

Didn't Pat and I, and I think this points to a bigger thing, tough to spell for some people.

Tough to pronounce, it's He-wit,.

Think of it that way, the Y is like a two Es.

So the Siberling family, a lot of people hear that and they think, oh, oh, Congressman Siberling, the CVNP, no, no, this is, well that is the family, but his grandfather's the one who built the house, which is on the National Register, and that one ODOT sign, yes they will get it fixed.

I will say there's been a lot of signs I've seen over the years from ODOT that needed help.

So it's okay.

(inspiring music) - Monday on the Sound of Ideas on WKSU, we'll talk about some of the methods being deployed to reduce speeding in Cleveland neighborhoods.

I'm Mike McIntyre.

Thank you so much for watching and stay safe.

(calming music)