CLEVELAND, Ohio — Abortion rights will be on the November ballot in Ohio.

We’re talking about whether this means more people will vote in August on Issue 1 on Today in Ohio.

Listen online here.

Editor Chris Quinn hosts our daily half-hour news podcast, with impact editor Leila Atassi, editorial board member Lisa Garvin and content director Laura Johnston.

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 here: https://joinsubtext.com/chrisquinn.

Here’s what we’re asking about today:

Tuesday was a big day for the majority of Ohioans who want to make abortion a right that the gerrymandered Legislature can’t take away. What made the day eventful, and what’s next?

The day was not quite so winning for Ohioans who want to legalize recreational marijuana, but the news overall was pretty good. What’s up with the effort to put legal weed on the November ballot?

Three years into her job, the head of RTA is getting a $56,000 raise. Did the RTA board members come through with their promised explanation for why an employee with so little time invested here deserves a raise that tops the total wages of many riders she serves?

How did the Ohio unemployment office put at risk the confidential records of countless Ohioans, leading to scammers stealing almost $200,000 and untold numbers of people having their accounts locked?

The Ohio Supreme Court booted Pinkey Carr from the Cleveland Municipal Court bench for her unprofessionalism and crazy antics, like going after people for not appearing in court during COVID, when they did not have to appear. That was not the end of her troubles. What’s the latest bad news for Carr?

A who’s who of greater Cleveland’s most influential leaders gathered near the waterfront Tuesday for an event organized by our company and the American Planning Association. What was it about?

We have an update on the Bedford Heights K-9 officer who sued for overtime for the hours he spent tending to his dog. How does the city justify taking the dog away from him?

Speaking of K9s, how is Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine taking some action to react to the k-9 mauling of an unarmed Black man with his hands in the air?

Laura, you brought it up yesterday as an item of suspense, so now you get to end the mystery. What is the companion sculpture to Ohio’s butter cow in the state fair?

We have an Apple podcasts channel exclusively for this podcast. Subscribe here.

Do you get your podcasts on Spotify? Find us here.

If you use Stitcher, we are here.

RadioPublic is another popular podcast vehicle, and we are here.

On Google Podcasts, we are here.

On PodParadise, find us here.

And on PlayerFM, we are here.

Read the automated transcript below. Because it’s a computer-generated transcript, it contains many errors and misspellings.

[00:00:00] Chris: Yesterday was a pretty big day in Ohio. For people that care about women’s rights over their body, it’s the first story we’ll be talking about on today in Ohio, the news podcast. Discussion from cleveland.com and the plane dealer. I’m Chris Quinn. I’m here with Lisa Garvin, Laura Johnston and Courtney Alfi.

Let’s get to it. Like I said, Tuesday was a big day for the majority of Ohioans who wanna make abortion a right that the gerrymandered legislature can’t take away. What made the day eventful and what’s next, Laura?

[00:00:34] Laura: Well, voters are going to get to vote on the abortion Rights Amendment on the November ballot that is official.

The signatures are in, they’re valid. Cuyahoga County had 70. Seven valid, sorry. 77,000 valid signatures. That’s 24,000 more than Franklin County. So we, we really turned out to sign this petition. And so no matter what happens with issue one on August 8th, Ohioans are gonna vote in November now. [00:01:00] We are gonna vote.

What happens with issue one will play a big role in how many votes they have to get to pass, whether it’s gonna be 50 plus one or 60%, because that’s what issue one wants to do, make it harder to pass any new amendments. But polls have repeatedly shown that the majority of Ohioans support a woman’s right to abortion, which is perhaps why anti-abortion activists are framing this question as a anti parent initiative.

[00:01:27] Chris: Yeah, they, they’re gonna frame it every way they can. It’s gonna be a nightmare of advertising and, and histrionic statements leading up to November. What I wonder now is, this was a big day for, for people who care about this, I mean, when, when Roe v. Wade came down, a great number of people were hugely distressed by what that meant for their country, their control over their body, and.

What happens now? Do you think that this spurs the anti-abortion people to really come out and force for issue one, or do you think it [00:02:00] spurs more women to come out for issue One? Because issue one determines it if, if issue one passes. Mm-hmm. The abortion amendment very likely will not if issue one fails, the abortion amendment very likely will.

As people collected signatures for the abortion amendment, they were advocating go vote no on issue one. It was part of the campaign, but I wonder who’s more energized today?

[00:02:24] Laura: I. I don’t know. I think that’s a really good question, and I think that this is, Frank LaRose has been quoted saying that issue one is a hundred percent about abortion.

I think it is. And I think that whatever arguments they use, I mean the, the reason this is on the August election was to get it in front of the November ballot and. This is what I would consider. This isn’t like anybody can get an abortion at any time, right? This is going to allow women to make their own reproductive decisions, including birth control, fertility treatment, continuing a pregnancy, abortion, or miscarriage up to viability, which is [00:03:00] 22 to 24 weeks.

After that, the state can regulate abortion. There is some idea that. After the cutoff, if there’s a professional judgment of pregnant patients treating physician, it’s necessary to prone, protect health or life. But for the most part, this is, we’re not talking about third trimester abortions, which is, you know, those horrible pictures that that anti-abortion people like to show

[00:03:22] Chris: and they will show they will.

Pull out all the stops. Look, this is a result of the gerrymandered legislature. They’re, they’re not representing the majority of Ohioans. The heartbeat built does not represent what Ohio wants, so the constitutional amendment brushes them back. It’s why issue one has to be defeated. Mm-hmm. Because, It’s not just abortion.

The, the Constitution is the one tool. Voters have to push back on this legislature that no longer represents what Ohio is. It’s just not centrist like Ohio. Uh, and you’re right, the reason they put it on there is all [00:04:00] about abortion. But the ramifications of issue one, yes, go far are far, far greater than abortion,

[00:04:05] Laura: right?

So even people who are anti-abortion, you could say, look. I don’t want abortion, but I also don’t wanna take away people’s right to choose. So there, there you can, you can be both, I think. And we are gonna see all sorts of histrionics come out about this and, and blatantly lies because there are, they’re already saying that this is going to permit minors to undergo abortions and sex change procedures without their parents’ knowledge or consent.

Like this amendment has nothing. To do with sex changes, like this is about abortion and they’re just gonna throw everything they have at this to make this. You know, people who are conservative, who, you know, go out in droves

[00:04:44] Chris: and there’ll be a lot of money being spent. Yeah. To counter that message. But in the end, I think most Ohioans already have their minds made up about this.

It’s not like this is a new debate. It’s a debate we’ve been having for half a century. So I’m not sure all the histrionics in the. And the [00:05:00] nonstop barrage of advertising. The, the one group that’s really gonna make out from this is owners of television stations, because the advertising money they’re gonna get will make their

[00:05:09] Laura: year right.

And we’re the seventh state to do this. So, you know, it’s played out before and in just the year since Roe v. Wade was thrown

[00:05:18] Chris: out. You’re listening to today in Ohio, the day was not quite so winning for Ohioans who wanna legalize a recreational marijuana, but the news overall was pretty good for them.

What’s up with the effort to put legal weeded on the November ballot, Lisa? Yeah. The

[00:05:33] Lisa: coalition to regulate marijuana like alcohol has 10 days to gather at least 7,679 more signatures for placement on the November 7th ballot. They need 124. Thousand and 46 valid signatures from at least 44 counties.

They’ve gotta reach that, uh, level by August 4th. But as an initiated statute, as it’s initiated by the voters, it only [00:06:00] needs 50% plus one majority to pass. So it will not be affected if issue one passes in a couple of weeks. Uh, the attorney for the coalition, Tom Herrin. Says this is gonna be easy getting these signatures.

The majority of Ohioans support a proposal to regulate and tax marijuana, and he’s looking forward to giving voters a chance to make their voices heard in

[00:06:20] Chris: November. Yeah, I suspect that, that they’ll get it on the ballot. It’s not that hard to get 600 ballot signatures, and I suspect that then we’ll pass because I can’t really think of anyone who’s going to mount a real campaign, a well-funded campaign against it.

And if people are already going to the polls to enshrine abortion in the Constitution, you gotta figure a lot of them will be yes votes, right?

Yeah.

[00:06:43] Lisa: And you see, you know, we have conservative lawmakers like Dave Joyce, you know, who has been not a champion of legalized marijuana, but he’s certainly not against it.

And he’s seen the, uh, negative effects as a former prosecutor of, you know, marijuana laws. So yeah, I, I don’t know where that [00:07:00] opposition would come from.

[00:07:01] Chris: They did get the signatures in half the counties that they needed. They just didn’t get the total number right? Correct. Okay. My bet is 10 days from now, we’ll be talking about that being on the ballot you’re listening to today in Ohio, three years into her job, the head of the R T A in Greater Cleveland is getting a $56,000 raise.

Did the r c A board members come through with their promised explanation for why an employee with so little time invested here deserves a raise that tops the total wages of many riders she serves? Courtney, the answers were a little thin.

[00:07:38] Courtney: Yeah, they, they addressed this a, a wee little bit, but not too much.

So the board on Tuesday, They went into executive session, you can kind of assume this is what they were discussing in there. And then when they came out, they voted to give C E o India Birdsong Terry, this massive raise. It would bring her Sal, it brings her salary to an eye-popping [00:08:00] $335,000 annually. And that place her among some of the highest paid public officials in the Cleveland area and.

And no one really said anything with the exception of board member David Weiss. He’s the Shaker Heights mayor, and he said he feels it was important to maintain stability and continuity in this position. Birdsong. Terry’s been there for three years. This was a five-year contract going forward. And it was approved unanimously by the board.

[00:08:30] Chris: Yeah, I, I just don’t think the board was paying attention. There’s a lot of outrage about this. There are a lot of people that feel like this violates the sense of fairness, that she hasn’t been here long enough to have an impact. There hasn’t been much of an impact. We’re still way below where we were with ridership before the pandemic.

And it’s just a very large percent of raise. Plus she’s gonna get performance bonuses on top of

[00:08:53] Courtney: that. Yeah. Of up to 15% of that big salary. So that’ll, that’ll add up. And then she’ll also [00:09:00] get a lump sum of some $30,000 to cover this raise dating back to January. It was a, a retroactive thing. We did hear a little bit.

From the board’s attorney who, who kind of put this salary in context of other CEOs of regional transit authorities, kind of similar in size to R T A. Basically the board’s attorney was kind of justifying this salary. He noted that Cincinnati’s transit manager makes 316,000. Columbus’s Transit Manager makes 350,000.

And elsewhere in, in some systems that are around the size of Cleveland’s, San Diego is a bit bigger, but the person there earns 330 in St. Louis, the person there earns 300. And this, this salary analysis that the board used, I suppose to, to justify this increase. They determined that that Terry’s pay at at 335,000 would bring her to the [00:10:00] midpoint relative to that scale of her peers around the country.

[00:10:03] Chris: Yeah. The, we should point out that something like 80 to 90% of the budget of R T A is paid for through our sales taxes, not the people that ride. So everybody who buys things in Cuyahoga County is paying for this thing that doesn’t feel like. The board is very accountable to the people paying the money.

That wasn’t a really good explanation for this at all.

[00:10:27] Courtney: You know, it seems like they’re happy with Birdsong Terry’s work. You know, the R t A did secure a big giant grant from, from the federal government to replace its rail cars. So I think there’s a general acceptance and, and happiness with their work.

[00:10:42] Chris: Where I think the this has the unintended ramification is I. If the county goes out to ask people for a tax increase, this is the kind of thing that’s in the back of their mind, rankling them. You gave this gigantic raise. You really weren’t accountable about it. I have no [00:11:00] say over it, and now you’re asking me for more money, and it’s, it’s a dangerous thing to do.

They should have been much more transparent about this. You’re listening to today in Ohio. How did the Ohio Unemployment Office put at risk the confidential records of countless Ohioans leading to scammers stealing almost $200,000 and untold numbers of people having their unemployment accounts locked at the very time they need the cash.

Lisa?

[00:11:27] Lisa: Yeah. The Ohio Department of Jobs and Family Services found a flaw in a computer code that merged the identity and authentication functions between the jobless benefits system and the Ohio ID system. So Ohio ID was created so that users could have a single username and password for access to a variety of state programs and services that was extended to O D J F S in 2021 as an enhanced security measure.

But, That flaw allowed about $189,000 in [00:12:00] fraudulent claims walk out the door, and fraud attempts did spike in recent weeks for some odd reason. And then that forced O D J F S to freeze about 28,000 accounts Director Matthew Dams Schroeder says, the accounts with suspicious activity were frozen. But they did email directions to account holders to unfreeze those accounts with a two-step verification and answering security questions, or they said you could call their phone number, but you know, they, they’ve been deluge.

I saw a TV report the other day. Some woman waited six hours online on, on the phone to get. You know, and they did warn that wait times on the phone would be very long. They can’t provide details of the coding problem or the fix for security reasons, but this is just insult on top of injury because between April, 2020 and June, 2021, I.

About $447 million in fraudulent jobless claims were were made.

[00:12:57] Chris: What is so distressing about this [00:13:00] is that it involved the Ohio ID program. This is what the state trumpets as your secure way to transact business with the state, like paying your taxes, confidential information. There’s a whole bunch of B M B stuff.

You can do once you get the Ohio id and you gotta jump through hoops to do it, you have to get mm-hmm. Your credit checked. So if you have a credit freeze, anybody that’s done this knows you have to temporarily unfreeze it so they can check to verify you’re who they say they are. And then these clowns at the unemployment office connect their computer to it and create a, a flaw.

Uh, it’s just we deserve much better answers than we have so far. I also wanna point it back. We’ve been talking for three years now. John Husted repeatedly promised he was gonna fix the unemployment system. Where is he? He was on Twitter yesterday or the day before, posting Bible verses. It’s like, you know what?

We don’t need your Bible verses. We need you to do your damn job. Fix this system. How many people are suffering now because they can’t get their [00:14:00] necessary benefits because they’re on unemployment.

[00:14:02] Lisa: Well, and I don’t know exactly what the timeline is, but they extended Ohio ID to O D J F S in 2021. I’m assuming the code glitch existed then.

So here we are two years later, all of a sudden discovering what happened. I.

[00:14:17] Chris: It. It’s just amazing that they could compromise that. That’s supposed to be the safe place people go to. I heard from a lot of people about this yesterday. They are really aggravated and worried, and we’re getting so little information about what it ultimately means.

I. How many records were exposed? How did they get into any other system? Did they get into the income tax system? Did they get into the car title system? What did they get? What did these pe, what did this flaw actually create? That endangered the the security of Ohioans, the governor of the Lieutenant Governor, they should be talking about this.

You’re listening to today in Ohio. The Ohio Supreme Court booted pinky car from the Cleveland Municipal Court bench for [00:15:00] her unprofessional and crazy antics. I mean, she was going after people for not appearing in court during Covid when they didn’t have to appear, but that wasn’t the end of her troubles.

Courtney, what’s the latest bad news for Carr? I. Yeah, a

[00:15:12] Courtney: car was charged Tuesday with three counts of first degree misdemeanor falsification, and this came from Attorney General Davio’s office, the Bureau of Criminal Investigation. And like you said, this kind of feels like it was a long time coming after the Supreme Court last fall, yanked her from the bench over just a bunch of misconduct allegations.

Going back to the criminal charges from Yo’s office. This relates to Carr’s filing of journal entries. That quote did not reflect what happened during proceedings in her court. So she’s accused of crimes on the bench here. The offense dates listed in court records include one day in May and 2019, and like you said, two dates in June, 2020.

And that was back when the [00:16:00] municipal court was telling people not to come in for hearings. Then she was penalizing people for not coming into hearings and doing what the court had told them to do. So back to the, the court records and these criminal charges, they say car on three different occasions presided over arraignments and amended charges against defendants without a prosecutor present.

She then went on to check a box on, on this paperwork saying the prosecutor had amended the charges in one case. She filed paperwork. W saying that she held a hearing on a defendant’s ability to pay a fine before she waived that fine. She held no such hearing the document said, and in May, 2019, she veered off from an arraignment proceeding to basically belittle a defendant accused of having an open container.

She was like essentially making fun of him for, for drinking a cheap beer and saying, you know, Mr. Jerry doesn’t have too much money. How long is it gonna take you to come up [00:17:00] with $25? Then? So she’s set to appear for an arraignment hearing in her former court on August 8th on these charges.

[00:17:09] Chris: Yeah. What a, what an incredible fall.

Uh, but she was just completely outta control. And, and she, that when we started reporting on it, she lied and said that what we were reporting wasn’t true. And when the investigation finally came out, it was just the craziest thing. The, the Cleveland Municipal Court really isn’t designed. To handle judges who are way off, off the charts on what they’re supposed to do.

She’s not the first, and it takes a huge lift to finally remove them. And in the meantime, all the people that appear before the judge suffer, uh, crazy decisions and penalties. Um, it’s good to see that, that that justice might be served because if she did break the law, she is accountable as everybody else.

[00:17:54] Courtney: And, and Columbus was kind of the actor here that made, made these things happen. The [00:18:00] Supreme Court last October described her conduct as an unprecedented level of misconduct over a two year period, and they also said that she ran a modern day debtors prison by issuing warrants for people who failed to pay fines as a way to raise money for her co, for her court.

So, you know, Columbus, the Supreme Court Yo’s office is really what kind of got this done.

[00:18:27] Chris: Yeah. Although we should point out a lot of Republicans involved in coming after her. A Democrat. You’re listening to today in Ohio, a who’s who of greater Cleveland’s most influential leaders gathered near the Waterfront Tuesday for an event.

Organized by our company and the American Planning Association. Laura, what was it about? I feel like

[00:18:46] Laura: I should toss this right back to you since you were there and I was not, so I’m sure you’ll have more insight, but Megan Sims was there and wrote about the panel that two of the big names on it were Chris Ronne and the county executive and Mayor Justin Bibb and [00:19:00] what they wanted to stress.

Is that they are both on the same page when it comes to getting something done on the lakefront. That we’ve had so many plans be floated and then fail, and that this is the time that they really wanna get something done. And it’s important that they are both together on this and that. What I thought was really interesting is that Mayor Bibb talked about the, the, the railroad lines and the highway on the lake, and basically that it, it was racist and that it kept so many clevelanders from ever accessing our biggest asset and that we are going to make this equitable for all and, and get people down to the lake a whole lot easier.

[00:19:38] Chris: Well, the highway. Was it destroyed neighborhoods? Yes. I mean, it was one of those things that you, and, and you do marvel looking at it, who in their right mind would run a highway along the park.

[00:19:48] Laura: But that was the whole, like Robert Moses, I designed school. Yeah, they did all over the country at that time.

[00:19:53] Chris: Yeah. It was just crazy. But, but what, what Bibb and Ronne were. We’re saying was that we’ve had a lot of [00:20:00] lakefront plans over the years. Mm-hmm. And a lot of ‘em have died for lack of follow through. Um, and for the first time they feel like there’s some real alignment. What, what impressed me yesterday, I mean, I’ve never been in a room in Cleveland loaded with that many influential people.

I, I just could not believe the list. And they all came on a day in July to sit for, for two hours of, of wonky stuff. Um, Because it was, it was good. It shows there’s some real momentum. And the second one, Brian Zimmerman. The county director of planning and the city planner also talked about how, how the, the nuts and bolts of planning work to, to get things done.

Zimmerman, of course, runs the, the metro parks, which have transformed mm-hmm. The lakefront parks since they took, took over them. He explained all the cooperation that had to, had to do to get there. Um, it’s good, it’s good stuff. Steve Lit. Uh, moderated it and you do really feel like things are moving.

Chris Herne did drop a, a bit [00:21:00] of news there that he’s planning to shut down the courthouse. Uh, I guess we’ll talk about that some more tomorrow, but that, uh, kind of right offended that that’s some of the people who reside there, and

[00:21:09] Laura: that’s not. I mean, that’s not quite prime lakefront access, but it does.

It is a big impediment between the rest of downtown and the lake. So he was talking about development opportunities there. Remember to get a convention center hotel. We got rid of the county administration building there. So yeah, prime land for development.

[00:21:30] Chris: Ronne has the bonafides on the lakefront. He was the city planner when Jane Campbell’s lakefront development plan came together 20 years ago.

And a big part of this discussion was about how important it is for the public to be involved. And I remember this like it was yesterday, I had to cover some of these things. People came from the entire region on summer nights to spend two, three hours just envisioning how the lakefront could be used.

The big failure was, of course, Despite the public very [00:22:00] much wanting to close down Berk Lake for an airport, Jane Campbell caved and it’s still there. Although Justin Fibb did talk yesterday, like he’s aiming to, to wipe it out, Chris Rene told a story I’d never heard before, uh, uh, to to talk about the value of public input.

They got calls from people and Buffalo and Erie and all around the lake who wanted that. To talk to them. So they met ‘em somewhere. They put out the lakefront plan and they said, what’s your problem? And they said, we’re surfers and you’re putting something on Edgewater that’s gonna break our fetch.

Apparently Edgewater in storm time Yes. Is one of the best places on the Great Lakes to surf. Mm-hmm. So they listened, they took away what they were gonna do, and they preserved surfing, which continues to this day, the value of public input.

[00:22:43] Laura: That’s so interesting. I’ve seen them surf and it, it’s usually the fall when those big storms come in and it’s.

It’s amazing.

[00:22:51] Chris: But, but it is, it does point out you need to have public buy-in. Yeah, absolutely. Steve talked about a previous plan where it was 20 people in a locked room. They [00:23:00] came out with lots of pretty pictures and they today sit on a shelf somewhere.

[00:23:03] Laura: Well, and there’s a big meeting tomorrow and they, you know, they’ve been having lakefront meetings kind of.

Smaller ones to get ideas from people. So you do feel like there’s momentum building that they’ve put some money into this, into planning, and that it’s not just going to be a bunch of pretty renderings that look nothing like real life.

[00:23:23] Chris: Well, BIB is announcing the beginning of his lakefront plan tomorrow, but it’s to start a bunch more conversations.

It’s by no means, uh, a final. It’s really the launch of the conversation in earnest. Well, I can’t wait to see it. Yeah, me too. You’re listening to today in Ohio. All right, Lisa, we have an update on the Bedford Heights canine officer who sued for overtime for the hours he spent tending to his dog. We talked about this yesterday.

How does the city justify taking the dog away from him now?

[00:23:52] Lisa: Well, there’s been like a lot of back and forth on this in the last couple of days since Officer Ryan Kael filed his federal lawsuit in Cleveland [00:24:00] Federal. Court. Um, he was trying to get overtime pay for taking care of his canine partner, Bosco.

But Bosco was surrendered to Bedford Heights police early Tuesday morning. Uh, officer Katzel is actually leaving the department. He’s transferring to Strongsville Police Department. He and Bosco have been together for seven years now. The lawsuit remains. There’s an amended complaint that accuses Bedford Heights Police chief of.

Mike Marada of retaliation. So before the lawsuit, Marada apparently told Katzel that they were disbanding the canine unit and he could have Bosco for a dollar, which is in accordance with state law that allows officers to buy their canine companions for a buck. But then they. Changed their mind and ordered Katzel to return Bosco.

After the lawsuit was filed, they made that dollar offer again, if he would drop the lawsuit. Katzel paid the dollar on the 24th, which was Monday, but he was ordered to return the dog [00:25:00] later that day. Then social media rumors blossomed. That said Bosco would be euthanized, but Bedford Heights officials say that Bosco will be reassigned, and so the canine unit remains.

A capsule friend started a GoFundMe page to buy Bosco because Bosco has become part of capsule’s family.

[00:25:19] Chris: This is just mean. The, the, and they’re not thinking about the dog. The dog has spent seven years side by side with this officer and the city had agreed to, to, to sell the dog to this guy for a buck.

And now they’re being venal because he sued him. What’s, what’s in the best interest here of the guy in the dog? They should do the right thing. Um, To, to, they, they were done with the dog. They were going to abandon their canine unit. And now just to stick it to this guy, they’re, they’re playing this game.

I, I, it’s, government shouldn’t operate this

[00:25:50] Lisa: way and I think we should keep track of Bosco in the future just to see what happens because of all this back and forth. And Bosco is not a young dog. I don’t know what the, you know, [00:26:00] what the limit is on, you know, service dogs, but, you know, I think it’s a, she are getting up there in years.

[00:26:06] Chris: Well, look, anybody that has had dogs, and I’m a big dog guy, knows the relationship. There’s a real relationship between this officer and the dog, and the city is breaking it for pure venality. It’s wrong whether the lawsuit is legitimate or not. They shouldn’t be doing this. This is not the way we as a community should operate.

You’re listening to today in Ohio. Speaking of canines, how is Ohio Governor Mike DeWine taking some action to react to the canine mauling of an unarmed black man with his hands in the air? Courtney, the video that’s circulating about this is pretty horrendous. It

[00:26:42] Courtney: is, and DeWine is now saying that he’ll soon propose that the state build a scenario-based training facility that would be available to all police departments in the state.

And the way that this kind of connects back to the Circleville incident, I. I’m sure folks have [00:27:00] seen in recent days this video circulating. This happened on July 4th involving Circleville police. There was a truck driver from Memphis Derius Rose officers tried to pull him over for a missing mud flap. Um, he eventually fled from that and, and called 9 1 1 as he went telling dispatchers he thought the officers pursuing him were trying to kill him because they had their guns drawn.

He eventually stopped and you can hear on this body cam. An Ohio State Highway patrol officer telling the Circleville officer to not release his canine, don’t release the dog, and the dog’s released and he attacks rose. And so when DeWine talked to reporters yesterday, He weighed in here talking about how, you know, in big cities they have more robust training, they have better training facilities to support officers, but small departments don’t really have that luxury.

He was kind of describing, and [00:28:00] he wants to make that kind of top tier training. Available to anyone in the state, no matter their resources. So DeWine told us, you know that the incident in Circleville should be a lesson and a wake up call to everyone. That police training in the state is not equal, any of these’s making this case that it does need to be equal no matter where you reside.

Whatever department covers you. You should have access to the best training possible for your local

[00:28:25] Chris: officers. Yeah, but that’s really making excuses for what the officer did. Oh, it’s, it’s his training. It’s not, you don’t need training to know, you don’t allow a canine dog to attack a guy who’s prone, who poses no threat to you.

They’re releasing the dog. You didn’t need training to know that was wrong. And to say it’s about training gives an excuse to this guy that he really shouldn’t have. And to

[00:28:49] Lisa: ignore the orders of the

[00:28:50] Chris: other officer. Yeah. I just, I, I think what DeWine is doing here is giving this guy an out and he shouldn’t have an out.

What he did is wrong. And [00:29:00] when you do something wrong, you should be penalized for it. Not made excuses. Have people make excuses.

[00:29:06] Courtney: I, you know, I’ve covered small police departments in the state. I, I don’t understand any training would tell, tell you to do that. So then you’re just left with, he ignored the training or didn’t pay attention, right?

Or didn’t care,

[00:29:19] Chris: right. Uh, look, you, there’s all sorts of things you can do to train police better, but this, this didn’t require better training. This required the guy to do the right thing, and he did the wrong thing in the face of people telling them not to, that there’s no, this, this is not reason to say we need better training.

You’re listening to today in Ohio. Laura, you brought it up yesterday as an item of suspense. So now you get to end the mystery. What is the companion sculpture to Ohio’s butter Cow in the state?

[00:29:49] Laura: Fair inventors. So it’s actually several sculptures. They were unveiled Tuesday ahead of the fair Opening today uses more than 2000 pounds of butter, so we’re depicting [00:30:00] Thomas Edison and Milan, sorry.

Milan, Ohio with a light bulb and a photograph. Garrett Morgan of Cleveland with a traffic light. Josephine Cochran of Ash, Bule County with a hand powered dishwasher, and James Spangler of Akron and Stark County with a portable vacuum cleaner. Of course, there’s still a butter cow along with her calf, but there’s some super neat features including power cords running through the butter that illuminates the light bulb and the traffic light.

And the dishwasher has a transparent door so you can peer inside. Apparently that is a. First ever thing for Butter Cow exhibits, according to the American Dairy Association, midea.

[00:30:40] Chris: I, I I have no words for this. This,

[00:30:43] Laura: I know. It’s so bizarre. I mean, we’re talking about 450 hours that people created. Um, it was a team to create these sculptures out of 50 out of the butter, and they’re layered around steel frames inside this 46 degree cooler. But this is a tradition that’s been happening since [00:31:00] 1903 and I think it’s a real highlight of the fair.

I mean, hundreds of thousands of people are gonna trump in there. In this refrigerated space to see it.

[00:31:10] Chris: Okay. Like I said, no words. We’ll leave it there. That’s it for the Wednesday episode. Thanks, Lisa. Thanks Laura. Thanks Courtney. Thanks everybody who listens. We’ll be back Thursday.