(logo chimes) - The snowstorm that wasn't quite the Snowmageddon that had been predicted has cleared out, but it'll take some time before roads across the region are clear.

Cleveland mayor, Justin Bibb revealed his first budget proposal as mayor.

The 1.8 billion spending plan comes into balance with a surplus from last year fed by federal coronavirus relief dollars.

And businessman, Bernie Moreno drops out of the race for the Republican nomination for US Senate after conferring with former president Donald Trump.

"Ideas" is next.

(logo chimes) Hello and welcome to "Ideas" I'm Mike McIntyre, thanks for joining us.

It wasn't the Snowmageddon that was forecasted, but still the snowstorm that started Wednesday and ended Friday, caused some havoc, including nasty road conditions and hip high snow drifts.

Cleveland mayor, Justin Bibb released the first budget proposal of his regime, 1.8 billion dollars.

Bibb noted that the city's tax revenue will take a hit.

He's not sure quite how much because suburban commuters working remotely, won't be paying taxes to the city.

Mayor Bibb this week set a goal to vaccinate 60% of Clevelanders against COVID 19 by the end of the year and he's leaning on the NBA for an assist to get there.

Currently less than half of Clevelanders are vaccinated.

And Cleveland tech entrepreneur, and luxury vehicle salesman, Bernie Moreno retired his campaign for the GOP ticket in the Ohio Senate race.

He made the decision after conferring with former president Donald Trump, and he's promised to endorse whichever candidate Trump picks.

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

Joining me from Idea Stream Public Media, senior reporters, Nick Castele of WCPN and Kabir Bhatia of WKSU and in Columbus Statehouse News Bureau, Chief, Karen Kasler.

Let's get ready to round table.

The region was just digging out Friday from a winter storm that made travel difficult, sapped power to some homes and businesses and taxed plowing efforts.

Kabir what's going on, where you are, which is Hudson in Summit county?

You were out and about a little bit yesterday as Nick was, what did you see?

- I did see a winter wonderland as they say, just everything covered in white.

And then as the day progressed, it got more intense, the snow was been and blown all over the place, as people have noticed down here, were Northern Summit county for people who are wondering in Hudson and the roads generally were in decent shape.

Not great, of course you don't wanna be out there too, but it was a ghost town.

Nobody was out yesterday during the day, except for a few people who decided to go for a walk, or take the pets out or whatever.

I took the kids out and my wife and we were all outside and trying to build a snowman, it was terrible packing snow.

So (Mike chuckles) the one benefit of having a snow day, we couldn't even really take advantage of, but now it generally looks okay, the main roads, at least around here look okay, once you get down like towards Valley View and everything, I'm hearing reports that it is a bit slippery, but as rush hour closes up, hopefully that gets taken care of for the commute back home.

- I don't wanna say back in my day, but back in my day, this was like, you know, this is not that big of a snowfall.

And yet it seemed like we all, and I'm, you know, us included it.

We ended up staying in a hotel last night, but people seemed to really take the warnings of the weather folks.

And while it wasn't Snowmageddon, you were out and about a little bit yesterday, it's not good.

- No, it was pretty slushy yesterday.

I was driving around the west side, taking pictures, trying to see what the snow plows were up to.

And they were out, you know, I saw some in Tremont as well as in Detroit-Shoreway area, but it was snowing and the snow was picking up.

So as soon as the plow cleared a path, more snow was falling behind to fill it up again.

And so, you know, I know that the city said that they hoped to have all residential streets get at least a touch before overnight last night, I don't know whether they accomplished that.

And of course, even if they did, lots more snow has fallen and so they're gonna have to get out and do it again today.

- It's one thing to have a trucker, it's another to have a trucker and then when you actually look at the road, it's clear this is a struggle and a battle.

A lot of people have said, great, we now have a way to sort of follow the plows, but I'm not sure how much that helps at this point.

- Well, right.

And sometimes the trucker just tells you that the plow is somewhere else.

(both Mike and Nick chuckle) You can see where the plow is not, and it's not on your street.

Yeah, I mean, you know, what the Mayor had said, is that he wants to add 20 plows to the fleet.

I mean, that does seem like the solution to this problem, if you want, your street's done faster, get more plows, but that's gonna take some time.

I know some were ordered last year and because of supply chain issues, allegedly that's taken a long time for them to get in.

I believe the city added five plows, they said, and that they hope to add more by retrofitting other city vehicles, but you've also gotta get staff for those.

And so as mayor, Justin Bibb has said, this was not a problem, he was gonna have solved today.

This is going to take a little bit more time to get all of this expansion of resources in.

So we're left to deal with, you know, with the resources that the city currently has and it sounds like, you know, I haven't left the house today, but for those who had the misfortune of doing so it sounds like it was still pretty slushy, out there.

- Yeah, I can say, at my house nobody has left and the dogs said we're going as far as the porch and that's it.

(Nick chuckles) So that's happened, at least that's the report I got this morning via text.

Karen, ODOT had 1,000 plows out state wide, how has that gone?

- It appears to have gone as well as could be expected, I mean, when you've got a storm that is sweeping the entire state, and of course, ODOT only plows certain roads.

ODOT doesn't plow city streets, ODOT plows highways, and it's really a focused situation for them.

So if you've got complaints about your local street or whatever, that's a municipality issue.

But ODOT has suffered a little bit from having a shortage of secondary drivers.

And so they've added some people who were hired for another purpose who can drive plows, they've been put into that role.

But for the most part, it sounds like ODOT's been doing fairly well.

Everybody's gonna have complaints, I mean this is pretty standard for the winter, that people wanna complain about how the plow drivers are doing, and that ODOT's just not getting the job done, but this was a really big storm, and it went on for a while and as mentioned there was ice underneath the snow.

And so that complicates things as well.

So it's still going on, I'm sure for ODOT, it still continues as they're trying to get everything cleaned out.

And hopefully by the time we're all supposed to go back to work on Monday, the roads would be completely clear for us to travel.

- Nick, I noticed that a number of customers were without power, but some of that happened before the storm, it was Wednesday when I was seeing Jeremy Menski from Larder in Battery Park, talk about not in Battery Park, in Hingetown, they call it.

Talk about how power had been out at his store.

So there have been some serious issues with customers of Cleveland Public Power and the illuminated company.

- Well and the CPP issues have been going on for years, especially on the west side.

A couple summers ago, there were numerous outages, and people were very frustrated with that.

I believe Cleveland Public Power said that this particular issue is caused by corrosion in some underground lines that were affected by the snow and ice in the salt.

You know, CPP has known infrastructure issues.

And this was, you know, something that really came to light in the final years of the Jackson Administration.

And it's one more issue that is on the plate for Justin Bibb, trying to figure out, how do you upgrade this system, so that you don't have regular outages on the west side, which are obviously very frustrating to residents and especially frustrating to business owners, who've gotta keep a bunch of food cold.

And so I think this is going to be an issue that will continue to face city hall, you know, throughout not just the winter, but into the summer, which is when we've had outages in the past.

(logo chimes) - Cleveland mayor, Justin Bibb's first budget proposal, a 1.8 billion spending plan will now be considered by city council.

The mayor wants to increase spending in his own office to make government more modern and responsive, and he wants to beef up spending for safety forces and for citizens who have oversight over police.

Nick, I talked about some of those increases in the budget.

Are any of those a surprise?

And are there others that we should know about?

- Well, I would say overall there weren't huge changes, to the sort of the baseline budget, that the city's been working off of, you know, the mayor is adding more funding to his office.

He says that he needs to get his cabinet in place, he wants to have these special advisors on particular issues like the west side market and lead, so that he can drive his agenda.

And so that's why you're seeing this increase in funding there.

You know, that may get some attention from city council as they look toward other departments that have needs.

I think that you will probably hear some noise from city council about safety staffing.

You know, the budget did not increase all that much for police.

And I think perhaps one issue is that there's just so many open positions right now on the police force that need to be filled.

The budgeted strength of the force is 1,640 uniformed officers.

By the end of last year, the city was at about 1,400 officers.

So almost 240 positions shy of where the budget, you know, would have the city right now-- - [Mike] Previous budget-- - Yeah, I mean Budget, the city has budget for about 1600 officers, for a couple years now.

And retention, attrition have been issues in the past.

It seems that they are continuing, and we're sort of at an ebb right now, in the size of the police, at least compared to the past few years, I think that's gonna be an issue, that will get some attention from city council given the fact that they've done that in the past.

And that will be something that even the mayor has acknowledged that retention has been an issue, and he wants to find a way to keep officers in Cleveland, so they don't take jobs in the suburbs.

- I think 1.8 billion was the last budget, that mayor Jackson had submitted as well.

So the overall money hasn't changed much.

- No, not really.

And when you say 1.8 billion, keep in mind that you're counting a number of different things, not just the general fund that funds basic city services.

You're also including what are called enterprise funds.

These are the things that funds like the airport and certain other special activities of the city.

So 1.8 billion has been kind of the going number for a while.

- Mayor Bibb has been busy, we mentioned snowstorms and dealing with power issues, big budgets and a new push now, to increase the percentage of city residents, vaccinated against the novel coronavirus, less than half of Cleveland residents are vaccinated.

Bibb announced this week, a push to get to a 60% level by the end of the year.

And he's getting an assist from the National Basketball Association, with the NBA all star game in town in a few weeks.

And by the way, congratulations, Darius Garland now named to the team that guard for the Cleveland Cavaliers, the awesome Cleveland Cavaliers.

Anyway, with that being in town in a couple of weeks, the league is offering current and former players to run a vaccine public education campaign, which includes an incentive program, where fans can get merchandise and even Cavs tickets, league in the city will also run popup vaccine clinics in neighborhoods with low vaccination rates and high transmission of the virus.

Nick, I guess it couldn't hurt, but we've talked about this before, you wonder if we're to a point now, where if a lottery giving out a million bucks and doctors talking about the need for this and ads being bought in the newspaper by all the major hospital systems, if that doesn't work, will some Cav tickets work?

- Well, we'll have to see, I'll be interested to see how those pop up vaccination clinics go.

Certainly the mayor seems to think that some more progress can be made, particularly if you have a really strong on the ground effort, going door to door, trying to talk to people and overcome hesitation or doubts about the vaccine.

And so, you know, we'll see how the city is able to pull this off.

We don't yet know what neighborhoods these popup clinics will be in, but the mayor says it's going to be places where, you know, COVID transmission rates may be higher, as well as vaccination rates may be lower.

Right now, citywide, the rate that last check was something like 46% I wanna say, maybe 48%, below 50 though.

- [Mike] Right.

- And that is the percentage of people who have gotten either two rounds of your Pfizer or Moderna vaccines, or one of the Johnson & Johnson, that's not including people who have been boosted, which is even lower.

So the city certainly has some work to do to get up to that 60% number.

I don't know how they settled on the 60%?

Why not 70?

Why not 80?

It could be that 60 seemed like a more achievable goal, given that we're starting from a pretty far behind the starting line.

(logo chimes) - Cleveland tech entrepreneur, Bernie Moreno, who amassed great wealth selling luxury cars has dropped out of the GOP race, for US Senate, leaving eight other candidates.

A meeting with president Trump, whose endorsement he was seeking, prompted his decision to withdraw.

Karen, how did that conversation go between Moreno and Donald Trump?

Was that something that Bernie Marino had sought and needed some counsel?

- Well, he said in his statement, announcing that he was suspending or ending his campaign that he had asked for a private meeting with Trump and they talked, I don't know if they met in face to face or if they met over zoom or whatever, but he said in the statement that he had talked to Donald Trump and that they had agreed that there were too many Trump candidates in the race.

And that's an observation that's been made for quite a long time.

There almost everybody in this race for the Republican nomination for US Senate, is really strongly supportive of former president Trump, and Moreno said that they also agreed that having so many candidates in the race could potentially endanger as he put it the Maga movement from having this conservative seat in the Senate.

And so he decided, he said he was gonna leave the campaign and gonna support whoever Donald Trump eventually endorses.

Now, Trump has not said, he's going to endorse in the US Senate race.

He said, he's going to, well, he said, he's gonna endorse in the Senate race, he never said he was gonna endorse in the primary.

So I don't know if this is the first potentially of other departures or what might happen going forward.

But now we have five leading candidates, essentially.

They're all millionaires, only state Senator Matt Dolan has said, he's not seeking Trump's endorsement.

And Trump has actually said, he's not gonna give it to him anyway, because of the Cleveland Guardians' name change since Dolan is a part owner of the baseball team.

But this is an interesting development just a day after, the paperwork was filed.

- Right, but you know, here's a question.

So all of the folks who are we'd call them Maga candidates, people that are aligning with Trump, if we're now getting to the point where the president is talking to them and saying, okay, we need to clear the field.

Are they worried that there might be a wing of the Republican party that will say, you know what, maybe this Trump thing is over and we're behind somebody like Matt Dolan, who is a lifelong Republican, but isn't a Maga Republican.

- Well, I think that there's potentially some concern.

I think you're seeing this also on the gubernatorial side where you've got three fairly strongly pro-Trump far right Conservative candidates now.

And then Mike DeWine, who is seen in that race is a little bit more of a moderate.

I think that's what's happening in the Senate race as well.

And so realistically, when you start to count the votes for the primary, where are all those votes gonna be consolidated?

And I think, you know, it's a standard to want just one candidate running in the primary, because then all your support goes to that candidate.

And so perhaps this is something that there's a concern about when you've got so many candidates, all representing essentially the same positions, then how can you consolidate those rather than split that vote and all the rest of the votes go to another candidate?

One of the thing I wanna add here is that Bernie Moreno took this seriously, it seemed from all measures.

I mean, he was raising a lot of money, he spent a lot of money.

He had a 4 million dollar ad campaign back in December, though he hadn't been on TV for quite a while.

He also loaned his campaign three and three quarter million dollars.

So he took this pretty seriously.

(logo chimes) - The Global Center for Health Innovation in downtown Cleveland, could be getting an expensive makeover.

The Medical Mart and Global Center Iterations have failed.

The corporation that manages the building is looking for 46 million dollars.

Most of it coming from the county for renovations.

So how will the changes help Nick?

I mean, it's, this place has been, I would guess we'd call this an Albatross.

- Well, it began as the Medical Mart, the idea was it would be a showroom for medical supplies, that never really materialized.

Although I do remember touring it once with then county executive Ed FitzGerald, and the, I believe Irish health minister on St Patrick's day.

And we did look at an MRI machine.

So there were some medical supplies at one point, but that really didn't pan out.

There was an idea that this would be an incubator for startups.

And, you know, there were some splashing announcements a couple years ago.

I haven't heard too much since then about, what has developed, but now it looks like, it is maybe shedding it's earlier forms in becoming maybe what it was supposed to be all along, which is just an extension of the convention center, which it's already connected to.

So this money would be, it would fund things like putting in some escalators and refurbishing some of the floors to make it more amenable, to big gatherings.

They wanna put in a ballroom and they're looking to a variety of funding sources including floating some county bonds to get it done.

So this is another try, another swing of the bat, at trying to make the Medical Mart turned Global Center for Health Innovation, into something that, you know, the community can say, this was worth it.

- I don't know if this is how you handle things in your household or property, but when things are not going well, then just blow a bunch more money on it?

- (chuckles) Unfortunately, that is some sometimes how we solve our problems, but it's usually not, you know, to the tune of 46 million dollars.

- Good point (Nick chuckles) Well, we'll certainly continue to be following this.

And I think right now the Global Center is used really as an extension to Convention Center.

I've been to events where you go up the escalators and you have a reception say in the ground floor, the global center, when you've been at a convention, beside that, I guess this will make that a little bit more convenient, but it certainly makes the Convention Center a much more expensive proposition.

- Well, I think it was always an expensive proposition.

Wasn't it, something like almost a half billion dollars for these facilities?

And so, this seems like, we're trying to find another use for this building.

It was used by the way, for jury trials, during a part of the pandemic, as a way to, you know, put some more space into these courtrooms.

So I think that phase is over now, but it has seen some other ancillary uses now and then.

- Wasn't it in October a popup how Halloween costume shop?

(Karen chuckles) - It could be the biggest Halloween USA in America.

(Mike chuckles) That's low hanging fruit.

- Love it.

(logo chimes) Three years ago, Cleveland City Council introduced legislation that guaranteed low income tenants with children free legal help in eviction cases.

A New York based consultant told city council this week that the right to counsel law has been a big success.

Nick, The Legal Aid Society, which provides the free representation has been able to prevent eviction or provide housing for a large percentage of clients.

- Yeah, it seems like according to this report, they've been able to make a dent in this issue.

A lot more people are getting representation who didn't have it before, Legal Aid and in the other sort of folks in right to council, they went to Cleveland City Council, and they were talking about money.

You know, they said that their budget for the program was about 2.7 million dollars.

The city has paid a small portion of that $300,000 I think that's one issue we should keep an eye out for, in budget hearings.

Is it possible that council will advocate to put more city money into this program now that they have this report attesting to their success?

That's seems like a distinct possibility.

- It's an interesting point because we've talked about this on this program about whether tenants should have right to counsel in that landlords usually do, and the outcomes are usually poor if the tenants don't, but it doesn't necessarily a landlord versus tenant thing.

Often what happens here, is that people come together, they find out there is funding that can be employed through a number of organizations and landlords get paid and tenants don't get evicted.

- Well, right there has been during the coronavirus pandemic eviction relief funds available.

And I believe, you know, going through housing court, is a part of that process.

And so, you know, making sure that tenants have legal representation is a key part of the puzzle.

Because often you just need a lawyer to help you navigate the system, you can't do it on your own, or if you do try to do it on your own, it's gonna take a lot more work and a lot more time.

And a lot of folks don't have that time.

So, you know, having an advocate there in the room, in the housing courtroom is extremely valuable.

(logo chimes) - Cleveland's department of public safety is seeking nearly half a million dollars from the state to buy cameras that would be attached to poles in traffic lights around the city and be capable of monitoring the license plates of all passing traffic.

They also see camera drones that would rush to and monitor crime scenes before police can arrive.

I mean, that's some new age stuff, Nick, the idea that a crime happened, let's send a drone.

- Right and while you might have privacy and civil liberties advocates like the ACLU typically being pretty skeptical of this expansion of surveillance technology, I think on Cleveland city council, there's a lot of interest in it, you know, Mike Polensek, who is the new chair of the Safety Committee, was pretty explicit in saying this is important stuff and he wants it.

I think, you know, city council members want more surveillance in their neighborhoods, particularly as the city is seeing a, you know, this increase in violent crime over the past couple years.

And you know, they've been trying for years and years to get money for more security cameras and I think that trend is just gonna continue.

- I've heard of security cameras, like on poles and street lights and stuff to take a look, in these cases, they'd be snapping pictures of license plates.

You basically know where everybody is, but the idea of a drone replying to, responding to a crime scene was different to me and interesting to hear, but in terms of the cameras that snap pictures and stuff, Kabir in Hudson city council's, is gonna consider that very thing, it's a little bit controversial there.

- It is, I saw bipartisan disapproval, at least if again, social media is any indication.

This was at their workshop last week, I believe it's on the agenda for next week.

And while there are mobile units throughout, you know, Northeast Ohio, different communities, Hudson included, I believe, these are for the ones that would basically get plates coming in and out of town so that they can know when a wanted plate of some kind is entering, or if there's a crime that's happened, they can check the records and see if that which plates were going in and out of town that day.

So the public at least, the ones that have been speaking online are not happy about this from either side of the political spectrum, but it remains to be seen what council will do and how they feel about it.

- We'll take a look at it in Northern Summit County and here in the heart of Cuyahoga County as well.

All right, let's move on finally.

♪ Can I kick it ♪ ♪ To all the people who can Quest like A Tribe does ♪ ♪ Before this, did you really know what live was ♪ ♪ Comprehend to the track ♪ If you couldn't tell by the lyrics, that's Tribe Called Quest.

Yesterday, "The Sound of Ideas" featured lengthy discussion on this year's list of Rock Hall nominees, a reminder that isn't the inductee class of 2022, which I actually accidentally gave the impression on a social media post and fixed it.

Just those, that may be in the class, it's the nominating class.

So it's 17, including Dionne Warwick, Beck, Carly Simon, Rage Against The Machine, A Tribe Called Quest, Duran Duran, Dolly Parton, wait, Dolly Parton, and many, many more.

Kabir, you were on the show yesterday, we definitely need to mention Akron base Devo, a three time nominee, is this their time?

- I hope so.

The rock hall always seems to induct folks at somewhat inopportune moments because this year it's gonna be in Los Angeles, this fall so of course with our luck, so will get in this year, yeah.

But I think the city will go berserk if they do get in, it'd be great.

- Karen, who needs to be on this list?

Who needs to be inducted?

- Duran Duran, in my opinion, Kate Bush, Pat Benatar, New York Dolls, probably.

Dolly Parton, I mean, God, I love her.

- [Mike] An influencer.

- She's wonderful, yes.

I don't know, but gosh, I hope so.

It would just be really, it would very, very cool.

She deserves all the awards (chuckles) - Nick, you're a politics reporter.

So you're probably a rage against the political machine person, right?

- (chuckles) I guess you could say that.

I mean, I think you gotta think that Dolly Parton's a shoe in, I mean, it just enormously popular, you know, supporting, reading all over the country has been an advocate for encouraging vaccination.

I mean, I think that she just has such a huge, her reputation precedes her and you think they, it would be an outcry if she didn't get in.

- Monday on "The Sound of Ideas" on 90.3 WCPN host, Rick Jackson will discuss a new demolition concept called deconstruction.

It involves carefully dismantling buildings for potential reuse.

I'm Mike McIntyre, thank you so much for watching and stay safe.

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