CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Ohio’s shameful gerrymandering controversy has earned the state unwanted attention with a story in New Yorker magazine, calling the GOP-dominated General Assembly a “center of extremist legislation” that is “radically out of sync with Ohio constituents.”
We’re talking about that story on Today in Ohio.
Editor Chris Quinn hosts our daily half-hour news podcast, with editorial board member Lisa Garvin and reporter Courtney Astolfi.
You’ve been sending Chris lots of thoughts and suggestions on our from-the-newsroom text account, in which he shares what we’re thinking about at cleveland.com. You can sign up for free by sending a text to 216-868-4802.
Here are the questions we’re answering today:
We’ve talked for a long time about how far right fringe conservatives have used gerrymandering to pass laws that most Ohioans don’t support, but suddenly Ohio’s torching of democracy has national attention. What is it that we’re talking about?
A judge surprised everyone when she abruptly quit recently. Now we know where she will next pound her gavel. Where is that?
At first blush, it might seem silly for Cleveland Mayor Justin Bibb to be at the White House to watch President Joe Biden sign the CHIPS Act that will benefit the big Intel plant going in Columbus. But Bibb and Intel are not unrelated, it turns out. How have they come together?
The OneOhio Recovery Foundation board is supposed to be a good thing -- an agency that distributes hundreds of millions of dollars in opioid settlement money for the betterment of Ohio. But it is already controversial. Why is it in hot water this week?
Oberland College has an outstanding $36 million judgment against it because courts found it damaged a bakery’s reputation via student protests. Why is a court saying it does not have to pay the cash just yet?
Why are people walking downtown near Tower City saying the place is a bit scary these days, especially at night? We’ve seen a lot of reports of crime down there. People getting mugged. It’s not pedestrian friendly at all right now. How does the owner of Tower City plan to change that?
The wrongful arrest of a guy on a no longer valid arrest warrant could be leading to an entirely new policy for when Cleveland police arrest anyone based on a warrant. What happened to this guy and what is the proposed change to make sure it doesn’t happen to anyone else?
The folks who oversee Playhouse Square went all the way to England to find their next CEO. And it is someone with a pretty good resume. Who is he?
Does anyone study what impact it has on children to be surrounded by gambling? What are the latest establishments to want to have sports gambling kiosks for your convenience?
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Read the automated transcript below. Because it’s a computer-generated transcript, it contains many errors and misspellings.
Chris: [00:00:00] Ohio is getting some unwanted attention nationally for subjects we’ve been talking about for a long time on today in Ohio, the news podcast discussion from cleveland.com and the plain dealer I’m course Quinn. I’m here with Lisa Garvin and Courtney Affy LAR Johnston’s off this week. Uh, the story we’re talking about is first up on the list.
Let’s go, we’ve all known for a long while. How long, how the far to the right fringe conservatives have used gerrymandering to pass laws that most Ohio ones don’t support, but suddenly Ohio’s torching of democracy has national attention. I love the torching of democracy line. It comes right from what we’re talking about.
Lisa, what am I talking about?
Lisa: Yeah, there’s an article in new Yorker magazine written by Jane Meyer about the. General assembly in Ohio and the gerrymandering that’s been going on since 2010 in the article, she basically calls the G O P dominated general assembly [00:01:00] quote, a center of extremist legislation and radically out of sync with Ohio constituents.
And as I said, you know, we had a, you know, the census every 10 years, we draw new maps after the sentences. So in 2010, we had a highly gerrymandered map that led to a Republican super majority. Assembly, but also led to voters voting to change all that and to get rid of gerrymandering. But did that help this.
No, it did not. The article also singled out, uh, house speaker, Bob cup and Senate president. Matt Huffman is the most powerful, you know, people in the legislature. And, uh, they’re the ones that kind of crafted this veto proof, super majority and creating legislation under that banner. They also talked about the center for Christian value.
Meyer says that the, this group commands unusual. Lu and Ohio government and is helping author some of the most extreme legislation that’s being passed. It also stated that basically the [00:02:00] legislature’s going against the will of voters on abortion, good legislation, despite polling showing otherwise. So, yeah, it was an interesting to see that it’s, it’s attracted NA national attention.
Chris: It, it’s a good piece. If you, if you are from outside of Ohio and you haven’t seen what we’ve all been dealing with for some years now, this is an eye opener because I don’t think I, I’m not a native Ohio. And I grew up on the east coast. I always thought of Ohio as kind of a cent state, but this article says we’re passing legislation.
That’s to the right of South Carolina. You wanna talk about a measurement? You don’t want to the right of South Carolina and, and what’s sad is. It won. It doesn’t matter. The, the, the conservative said, ah, that’s a left wing magazine. Who cares what they say? Mm-hmm , but everything in the article is true. We have all pointed it out.
I hear from people that are moving or seriously consider moving from Ohio because they feel like it no longer makes any sense. And they have torch democracy, the laws they [00:03:00] pass don’t represe. What Ohio ones want. And, and there’s no end in sight that it just keeps coming and coming. It it’s. So it’s a very strong piece and I’m, I’m glad that that others can see it.
I do wonder if anything will be done to make it right. You pointed out that voters did try to make it right through the changing of the law, but Mike DeWine and his cohorts on the redistrict and commission. Didn’t uphold their vow to uphold the Ohio constitution. They defied the Ohio Supreme court. They did not do their job.
I don’t understand how any of ‘em can stay in office. I mean that if you had to pick a single issue, you know, most people say you shouldn’t use a single issue, but if you had to pick a single issue, defying the constitution, you swear uphold is the one it’s okay. You didn’t do your job. You should not have the job.
It doesn’t matter. What else you did. My question is what do you think the folks at, in. Thought when they saw the new Yorker article, they’re about to build a gigantic chip factory here. They’ve gotta attract [00:04:00] all sorts of highly educated employees to live in Ohio, and they may not want to.
Lisa: I don’t know. I, you know, I think this article does bring Ohio out into the open, but we have been flying under the radar.
I mean, whenever you hear about extremist legislation, it’s always like Mississippi, Louisiana, Arizona. I mean, you never hear Ohio mention, so they, this puts us into the national conversation. I don’t know how effective that will be. Um, but yeah, we’ll have to see how the dice get rolled.
Chris: It’s a national embarrassment.
We look terrible. We, we are anti-democratic we, we are defying the will of the people. Uh, that is a terrible look for a state to have when it’s seeking to have economic development. The November elections will be interesting. It’s today in Ohio. Uh, South Euclid’s long time controversial municipal court.
Judge surprised everyone when she abruptly quit recently. Now we know where she will next pound her gavel. [00:05:00] Courtney, where is that?
Courtney: On the TV for, for all to watch. Yeah. Judge Gail Williams buyers is heading to an a and E show called court night live, and it’s gonna be with that. Well known TV judge, judge Mathis.
There’s gonna be a handful of other former judges on this program. Kind of doing that standard judge TV show, civil arbitration cases, and the show premieres at 9:00 PM, Wednesday and, and Williams buyers is gonna be one of. Several, several judges on the program. It’s gonna be filmed in front of a live audience in a few different cities and, uh, you know, We wonder how we got here, right.
But a and E is not telling how and why it chose William by as, as one of the people on their program. But we
Chris: know from the many stories we’ve written about her over the years, that she’s highly controversial. She was at war with the city council so much so [00:06:00] that the city council has petitioned the state to dissolve the court and put them into another court.
Because they said she was outta control with her budget. Her records were not auditable. I mean, it was pretty much a nightmare battle. And, and at one point the city just referred people who complained about the court to the Supreme court, which led her to try and hold people in contempt of court. So you gotta think that the producers of the show are looking for controversy.
It makes for good.
Courtney: Well, like you said, there, there’s just been a lot of drama in her courtroom in recent years that we’ve chronicled. She, she, she did hold the, the city’s police chief in contempt for not sending her. Emails, uh, it, it is part of, one of the incidents you were talking about. So, I mean, holding the police chief in contempt, those budget issues, she’s come under fire for, for traveling, you know, absurd travel kind of spending and using public dollars to do that.[00:07:00]
She’s just been one kind of headline after another. You gotta think that maybe makes her right for TV? Yeah.
Chris: I, if they’re looking for controversy, they’ve certainly found it. And if that’s the kind of show that this is, then she’s probably ideal for it. I, uh, will have to see how she does in TV and land.
And as a reader pointed out, it obviously involves travel to those other cities. And as you noted, we chronicled how she likes to travel. . So we’ll have to see what the next chapter is for our former judge it’s today in Ohio. At first blush, it might seem silly for Cleveland mayor, Justin Bibb to be at the white house to watch president Joe Biden sign the chips act that will benefit the big Intel plant going in in Columbus.
But Bibb and Intel are not unrelated. It turns out Courtney, how have they come together?
Courtney: Yeah, mayor BBB wants Cleveland to get a piece of this pie in some kind of way. You know, this, this plant is headed for outside of Columbus, but [00:08:00] B sees lots of opportunities to, to, to, you know, bring some of its prosperity to Cleveland.
And, and that’s why he went to DC yesterday. You know, our, our reporter Sabrina Eaton talked to him after the signing of the bill, outside the white house. And. And he said his administration’s been meeting with Intel for several weeks to talk about what Northeast Ohio could bring to the table here. And he wants to see, you know, Cleveland become a hub to support all the, the extra investments that will come beyond just the plant itself.
He wants this area’s companies to get a share of contracts, to supply the plant. And he also. Cleveland students to have a way to kind of enter into Intel’s workforce pipeline. So he said he, he spoke with Intel CEO. Pat Gelsinger yesterday before the bill signing to make this pitch. And he was there to kind of rub shoulders and, and bring some of this
Chris: home.
Yeah. When I first heard he was gonna be there, I thought, oh, come on. You’ve been in office seven months, [00:09:00] stay home, do your job. But it turns out he had been doing his job. If his administration’s been talking Intel for weeks about how to have Cleveland capitalize on having this thing down there, that’s that’s forward thinking obviously, Intel will need suppliers.
Obviously Intel’s gonna need some regional support. And a lot of people have thought that Cleveland has a lot of industry that could feed that, but for him to be that proactive, then it makes a lot of sense for him to be down there. Cuz it shows that Cleveland is serious. I had, did you have any idea that they were working with them or was that all under the radar?
Courtney: I didn’t hit my radar. Yeah. So keeping that under wraps, but, but this has been, you know, kind of BIB’s Mo since we’ve seen him in office, he has been traveling a lot. He’s gotten, he’s gone to DC, a handful of times he’s met with these mayor groups, but it’s kind of part of his approach to being mayor. He, you know, he said he’s using those opportunities to network and talk through things with folks to try and bring.
[00:10:00] Policy and ideas back home. And this seems to be an example of that philosophy. And you
Chris: recently looked at his travel records and we saw nothing alarming. He’s not, he’s not spending money. Like the former judge, we mentioned a little while ago. uh, seems to be yeah, no, no making sense what he’s doing, not to that.
Yeah. Right, right. okay. You’re listening to today in Ohio. The one Ohio recovery foundation board is supposed to be a good thing. An agency that distributes hundreds of millions of dollars in opioid settlement money for the betterment of Ohio, but it is already controversial. Lisa. Why is it in hot water this week?
Lisa: Yeah, not a very auspicious beginning for this 29 member board. So a pair of lawsuits were filed by the harm reduction, Ohio, which is a nonprofit drug policy group. And also the state’s largest distributor of Naloxone. They’re claiming that the one Ohio recovery foundation board is holding closed meetings and not responding to their [00:11:00] document requests.
They held their inaugural meeting back in may. And harm reduction. President Dennis Khaw says he was not allowed to attend even though as. An alleged nonprofit, they would be open to that. And the state said that they would have open meetings. So this 29 member board will be deciding how to distribute 440 million of the total 800 million settlement that the state got with three opioid distributors.
Um, it includes state and local government leaders, including council, president, uh, Armen Buddhi, uh, treatment experts and others, but one Ohio in their suit. They said that, um, The, the board is claiming that they’re not subject to open records because they’re a private entity, but they also said the suit says that they’re not yet recognized as a 5 0 1 C three, uh, you know, nonprofit.
So they’re a government entity and as such should be, you know, Beholden to open records, requests and open [00:12:00] meetings and governor DeWine, uh, flack Dan Tierney says that this board is not a government agency and they’ve been transparent all along.
Chris: Here’s the thing, the, they they’re distributing public money that makes it automatically.
Public, you have to be transparent. The fact that they’re closing their meetings and playing this game actually raises all sorts of sinister questions about whether Mike DeWine has got an agency distributing money in sinister ways to. Provide money to his cronies. This needs to be transparent. The idea that it’s not raises questions, we’re the big transparency people, but this is inexcusable.
Dan Tierney should have been the first one to say what? They’re not open in their meetings. We’ll get right on it. That must be public and transparent. His answer was bald dash and I’m sure if we get to talk to Mike DeWine for our editorial endorsement interview, we’ll be asking him. Why he is allowing this to happen.[00:13:00]
Lisa: I do wanna point out that, uh, Mr. Kone with harm reduction, Ohio is using a fund, uh, a term that you love. He’s calling this a slush fund. If there’s not gonna be any transparency over it, then it’s a slush fund in his mind.
Chris: He’s right. You can’t, this is public dollars. This, the, the reason this money has been put together is the public of Ohio was abused by these companies.
The, the, the settlement is to, to reimburse Ohio. In’s. For that damage. This board is supposed to find the best use of that public money. And the fact that they’re doing it secretly secretly says slush fund slush fund slush fund. We have a massive corruption scandal going on in the state house with Larry hell sold in HB six.
This is hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars. Mike DeWine get off the. Order it to be transparent or questions will continue to plague it. Uh, I’m glad that the, these folks have raised hell about it and will continue to follow it. [00:14:00] It’s today in Ohio Oberland college has an outstanding 36 million judgment against it because courts found it damaged a bakery’s reputation via student protests.
Why is a court saying it does not have to pay the
cash
Chris: just yet? Courtney?
Courtney: Yeah, this is a temporary hold on the payment. Right? So the Ohio, so, so, so the money could still have to change hands, but the Ohio Supreme court ruled Tuesday that the college can hold off, paying up while appeals are working their way through the court system.
So a pause, the money could still need to, to change hands here, but. That really ultimately depends on the, the final outcome of the case with this ruling on Tuesday. So Gibson’s bakery, which has been around for like over a hundred years. They’d sued Oberlin school for this 2016 incident in which the bakery owner, son fronted three black students, one, um, who, who was caught stealing from the bakery.
The bakery [00:15:00] accused the college as part of this bruh haha. Of libeling them and, and hurting their business and the response to this incident. In April three judges on, you know, the Ohio ninth district court of appeals upheld a trial court judges, 2019 ruling that awarded the bakery, those millions in punitive and compensatory damages.
But Oberlin’s appealing that finding from the appeals court to the Ohio Supreme court. We don’t know if the top court’s gonna take it up yet, but they did come down with this decision. What’s really interesting. Here is. They didn’t really explain why they were putting a pause on this case. This was a big political flashpoint when it happened in 2016.
So politics are swirled up in here. They, they, they didn’t really expound
Chris: upon why. Yeah. This is a huge cause for conservatives who really looked at Oberlin as the liberal college bastion, uh, it’ll be interest. The timing of the Ohio Supreme court. [00:16:00] If it’s after January where it would be decided it, then whoever the chief justice is, will play a key role.
If it’s Sharon Kennedy, she’s shown politics, plays a big role in how she votes and Oberlin is going down it’s today in Ohio. Yeah. We people walking downtown near tower cities say the place is a bit scary these days, especially at night, we’ve seen a lot of reports of crime down there. People getting mugged.
It’s not pedestrian friendly at all right now. What does the owner of tower city plan to change that? Lisa.
Lisa: Yeah, the owner is bedrock and it’s a, it’s a real estate group and they will begin this fall to implement plans, to improve the downtown street scape around public square and terminal tower. Um, they wanted to make it more welcoming and pedestrian friendly.
They’re looking at things like. Trees planters places to sit. Um, the city planning commission approved the concept unanimously, although we don’t know the final cost of this, or who’s gonna bear this cost. [00:17:00] I assume it’s bedrock. Um, bedrock is working with land studio, which is a nonprofit that uses public art to engage residents.
And they did wanna say that whatever they build, they had a few renderings that we, we have in the cleveland.com article about this, but nothing really specific yet, but it looks like greening it up, making it more walkable. That kind of thing, places to sit. Um, but they did bedrock did recently open skylight park.
I didn’t know this I’m gonna have to visit, but it’s an indoor urban park within tower city. It opened last month in collaboration with the Conservancy for Cuyahoga valley national park. So this is obviously part of a, a plan to make tower city just more welcom.
Chris: Yeah, but around the outskirts of tower city, it’s very forbidden.
If you walk around down there and I hear from people that say they don’t feel safe, especially as the sun goes down, I’m not sure that what they’re talking about will change that they almost need to put some security there. [00:18:00] You know, remember when the casino opened, they opened a bridge to the garage, so people never have to go down to the street level and.
Reduce some of the street traffic, a healthy street is one that’s filled with people and you don’t really have that right now. We’ll have to see how this one turns out. They got a long way to go to make that place feel welcoming it’s today in Ohio. The wrongful arrest of a guy on a no longer valid arrest warrant could be leading to an entirely new policy for when Cleveland police arrest anyone based on a warrant.
Courtney, what happened to this guy and what is the proposed change to make sure it doesn’t happen to anyone else?
Courtney: Yeah, this was a really interesting little piece by John Tucker. So it involves Terry Davey who was pulled over in December, 2020 by Cleveland police. He was cuffed, his car was searched. He was move locations. His phone was seized and police were conducting an investigation to try and track him down to arrest him on [00:19:00] some outstanding warrants.
The problem was by the time they reached him and detained him, he’d already turned himself in on those warrants. So they’d already been, you know, served and satisfied. He’d already appeared in court and he’d already been released on bond. So the civilian police review board found some issues with this.
They recommended discipline for two officers, including a Sergeant in the gang unit who was kind of in charge of this arrest. And. In this, they kind of found that the city’s policies didn’t didn’t prevent the, the, the problem was, was that they did not check their system to see that the warrant had already been served.
And there was no policy that required them to check the system. And the police review board found this to be a loophole and they suggested a policy change. Recommending that officers have to go back and check to make sure the warrant’s still good before they move in to arrest people and start
Chris: surveilling that I feel for the police [00:20:00] on this one, because they’re actually trying to arrest people on warrants.
So they, they see there’s an active warrant for this guy. They go about trying to find him and their policy and procedures didn’t include the, the last minute check. So they, they did what they do. They finally find the guy, they had the warrant, they take him in. Uh, and so it it’s odd in my mind that there’s discipline here because this was more of a, a structural issue.
John Tucker’s story really lays this out very clearly. And the civilian review board is exactly right. They should change their policy so that before you put anybody in handcuffs yet just double check to make sure the warrant’s so good. Of course, that relies on the court system. To have updated it. And as we know, court records can be pretty sketchy too.
Courtney: Yeah. And it would also require police’s internal system to have recorded it. And, and there can be issues there. You know, a lot of that data is not [00:21:00] completely up to date. I also thought it was interesting that Lieutenant Jim O’Malley, the president of the union who represents higher ranking, you know, police officers, he, he kind of noted that.
Doing warrant checks actively can take 15 or 20 minutes. So he kind of pointed out some logistic problems with this proposed new policy. If you’re hanging around waiting for 20 minutes on a warrant check. The, the person could be off and in another county by then. So he found some logistical issues, but John also talked to some law professors and other experts who said that, you know, not having this policy can, can lead to more distrust with the public.
People feel like they’re being harassed because. They took care of their obligations and here they are getting pulled over anyways. So there’s a little thing.
Chris: Look, look, the city needs to do whatever it takes to not arrest people that are not wanted. So the, the civilian view board is right. Fix it. Don’t this cannot happen again.
If there’s a 20 minute delay and check in the [00:22:00] warrants, fix that, but the worst. You can do is to say, well, the system’s broken. We’ll lock him up and figure it out later. You’re depriving people of their Liberty and this guy didn’t have it coming. I that the, I, is it clear whether he has sued or anything?
I don’t think we know that, right? Yeah. I didn’t see reference it’s on cleveland.com. You can read it there. It’s today in Ohio. The folks who oversee Playhouse square, went all the way to England to find their next CEO. And it is someone with a pretty good resume. Lisa, who is he?
Lisa: He is 57 year old Craig Hassal.
If I’m pronouncing that right or Hassel, he has a longed. Distinguished career in the performing arts management industry. He’s leaving his post as CEO at London’s Royal Albert Hall to come to Cleveland. He previously held jobs with the English, ballet and opera Australia, and also had a hand in, um, arranging the 2000 Sydney Olympics [00:23:00] in the 2012 London Olympics.
He will come to Cleveland next year. He has to finish out the London. Season before he comes, uh, has says he’s honored and excited to help take the Playhouse square to the next level. And he calls it a dynamic and visionary organization. And of course, people don’t realize a lot of people don’t realize that outside of New York Playhouse square is the second largest performance.
Arts venue in the us with 11 performance venues overall. So it’s not like he’s taking a big step down. It sounds like, oh my God, he’s coming from London to Cleveland. But you know, this is probably one of the best places he could land. He replaces outgoing CEO, Gina Vernay.
Chris: Yeah, we all know Playhouse square is a Cleveland gem.
It’s one of the rare things you get here that you don’t get in other cities still, we see a lot of press releases come flooding through our email. This one made you stop and go. Wow. I mean, he really has done a lot of. Big stuff, [00:24:00] Olympics and Royal Ebert hall and, and all the things you mentioned, this is it, it will be very interesting to see what somebody with that kind of an international background comes to Cleveland and sees what he can do here and what, what will be the next step?
What is that higher level he’s talking about? He clearly has the bonafides to propose.
Lisa: He does. And, and I think this is a big win for Playhouse square in Cleveland. Overall, we will welcome him with open arms.
Chris: Yeah. It’s it’s huge. I mean, it’s um, this is very exciting. Playhouse. Square is exciting. This could make it more.
So you’re listening to today in Ohio. Does anyone study what impact this has on children to be surrounded by gambling? What are the latest establishments to want to have sports gambling, kiosks for your convenience? Courtney, they’re gonna be everywhere.
Courtney: It sounds like at, uh, Kroger and Acme market, uh, are applying for licenses to have [00:25:00] kiosks and several of their Ohio grocery stores. So, uh, as reporter, as our reporter, Sean McDonald noted. Milk eggs and place a bet on the Browns that could soon be coming into Northeast Ohio grocery list. The only grocery store in Kaga county that’s been approved so far for one of these gambling KIOS is Acme and Parma there’s.
They also got approved for seven locations in summit county and one in north Canton. Kroger doesn’t really have locations in greater Cleveland, but they’ve been pre-approved for KIOS at 42 grocery stores across the state and here we know gambling. It’s a grocery store. It’s
Chris: UBI. It’s suddenly the messaging about betting is ubiquitous.
And we know that a certain percentage of the population has gambling addiction in their genes. And if they start to gamble, they ha they go down through a downward spiral. We’re just gonna surround people with the message, be be bad. Um, you would think. That a parent walking into a grocery store. , wouldn’t have to explain that kind of thing to their children, but it [00:26:00] just seems like with sports gambling, we are making it everywhere.
Courtney: Yeah. And, and basically what the state told us is that any retailer that holds the right liquor permit that allows for dine-in and carry out liquor sales and is already a lottery sales agent can apply for these kiosks. So I suppose these kiosks would only be going in places that already. Facilitate link sale of locker
Lisa: tickets.
Go ahead. No, I don’t. They have to prove, I thought that they had to prove that they had a certain amount of traffic to be able to get one of these. Is that correct? A certain amount of foot traffic.
Courtney: That’s not ringing any bells. Maybe that’s a different type of,
Chris: although I would think a grocery store for gambling.
Yes. The traffic they need. I mean, people are in there all the time. I just, it, the idea that you’re surrounded by that message now seems strange, but I guess you’ve been surrounded by lottery messages. There’s a [00:27:00] lot of machines in every grocery or many grocery stores. Uh, but this just seems like everybody’s trying to get in on this action.
Well, it’s a big social experiment. We won’t know for years what the results are. We will eventually it’s today in Ohio and we’re short, I guess. That’s what happens when Layla and Laura don’t join us. Thank you, Courtney. Thank you, Lisa. Thanks to everybody who listens to this podcast. Layla will be back tomorrow as will Lisa and Courtney.
Thanks for listening.
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