CLEVELAND, Ohio — The proposal to make it harder to amend the Ohio Constitution so far seems to be generating more early voter enthusiasm than last summer’s state legislative elections.

In 15 Ohio counties, voters requested about 30,000 early ballots by the end of June, seven times as many ballots, compared to the same time last year. More than half of the ballots are in Cuyahoga County. We’re talking about the fervor over the election 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:

It’s the most important story of the year in Ohio, and tomorrow, you can finally take official action on it. Early voting starts Tuesday on Issue 1, the sinister effort by Secretary of State Frank LaRose and Senate President Matt Huffman to fool voters into restricting democracy in the state. So let’s catch up on it. What do applications for early voting tell us?

LaRose and Huffman have tried, falsely, to make this a partisan issue, playing into that whole us versus them theme that Donald Trump uses so effectively. But Issue 1 would reduce the value of all votes, not just one party’s, and we’re seeing more and more conservatives on social media saying they will vote against it. Who’s a prominent Republican in Cuyahoga County who has joined that list?

If this effort backfires on LaRose, Huffman, Mike DeWine, Jon Husted and other elected leaders as spectacularly as it could, centrists in this state and those who lean left could receive a massive jolt from it. And the November ballot might just be the fuel the turn that fire into a conflagration. Why so?

In the wee hours of July 4, for some reason, Mike DeWine announced he had signed the state’s 2-year budget but with dozens of vetoes. What did the governor strike out, and what are the big things he left in?

State Sen. Jerry Cirino’s Orwellian bill to limit free speech on college campuses while claiming to protect it did not make it into the budget, despite him being on the reconciliation committee, but another Cirino college bill was passed by the house and signed into law. It’s more buffoonery from the state senator that will make Ohio less attractive to smart people. What does it do?

Cuyahoga County Executive did the hard work and came up with good plan and an ideal location for the new jail. But the county council, which was furious when Ronayne, as a candidate, blasted their idea for building the jail on a contaminated site, appears it will ut politics over policy on this one. How did the first public discussion go down?

Governor Mike DeWine’s office explained more than a few times why the train wreck in East Palestine is not appropriate for a federal disaster declaration. And now he has applied for that declaration. What’s his reason for the flip flop?

There’s a lot going on in Cleveland to build a prosperous future, but none of that will matter if people are afraid to head into the city because of crime. Stimulus Watch reporter Lucas Daprile took a look at how Mayor Justin Bibb hopes to reduce violent crime with $10 million in federal dollars. What’s the plan?

What is wrong with the police in Lorain. An officer shot a dog in front of a bunch of people for what appears to be no good reason. How is the community reacting?

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

[00:00:00] Chris: We’re back today in Ohio, took its midsummer Break last week and a whole lot of news happened. We’re here to catch up. It is today in Ohio, the news podcast. Discussion from cleveland.com and The Plain Dealer. I’m Chris Quinn here with Lisa Garvin, Laura Johnston and Layla Tassi. I hope you all enjoyed a week away from the conversations with each other, but I missed you.

Oh, let’s begin. It’s the most important story of the year in Ohio, and tomorrow you can finally take an official action on it. Early voting starts Tuesday on issue one. The sinister effort by Secretary of State Frank LaRose and Senate President Matt Matt Huffman to fool voters into. Torching democracy in this state.

Let’s catch up. Lisa, what did the applications for early voting tell

[00:00:50] Lisa: us? Well, it tells us that a lot of people are interested in this election. So through the end of last month, there were 29,336 requests for [00:01:00] mail-in ballots across 15 Ohio counties. This is according to a survey done by cleveland.com and the Plain Dealer.

This was compared to only 48. 20 in the same period for that weird August election we had last year for the primaries for congressional, illegal congressional districts and Cuyahoga the biggest request so far. Um, they 15,400 mail-in ballot requests that’s seven times higher than it was last year.

Almost, uh, 6,000 in Franklin County and then dropping precipitously from there. Geauga County 833 Summit at 753 Lake County about. 1,440, so this could signal a large voter turnout. There really is no historical president precedent for a, an August election on statewide issues. The last one was 1926, so there was an 8% turnout.

For the state legislative primaries in August of last year, remember that was that weird second election that we had to hold [00:02:00] because of the flap over the maps, the gerrymandered maps. And you know, experts say that absentee ballot requests can be an accurate take on voter enthusiasm, especially in urban areas where Democrats are more likely to vote by mail.

And don’t forget, voter registration closes today and early voting begins

[00:02:18] Chris: tomorrow. I, my mail last week while I was off contained, not. Not a small number of people that are anxious about their, where their absentee ballots are. They’re worried that they sent in the application. We had printed it in the paper a bunch of times and if they used it, they’re just wondering where is it?

Cuz I, they don’t wanna miss voting. And if they don’t think that their application worked, they want to go down and do early voting. So we’re gonna put together a story explaining to people how they can check their status. But that anxiety is very telling to me that people are desperate. To make their voices heard here, they’re against this, and I, I wonder if this is a sign of the strategy of [00:03:00] putting this in August, blowing up in the faces of La Rosen Huffman, they counted on nobody voting.

They counted on some infinite decimal of. Percentage of Ohioans, largely anti-abortion advocates showing up at the polls. But if Cuyahoga County alone turns out in big numbers mm-hmm. That’s probably enough to beat this thing back because they’ll be low voter turnout elsewhere. The passionate people about this or the ones who are against it,

[00:03:27] Lisa: and I’ve started to see yard signs.

Most all of them are vote no on state issue one, because as I was driving east on highway six, I did see two vote yes. Protect our constitution Lawn signs. So yeah, the, the groundswell is growing.

[00:03:41] Chris: I saw a picture this morning. Somebody posted on Reddit of a, uh, issue, one rally of some sort that took place, I don’t know, Lorraine or Medina County, and it’s in this big cavernous room and there’s hardly anybody there.

There’s no enthusiasm for the vote. Yes, there’s a ton of strength of feeling for the [00:04:00] vote. No. So, We’ll have to see tomorrow opens the, the polls. We’ll have to see how much people line up you’re listening to today in Ohio, LaRose and Huffman have tried falsely to make this a partisan issue with issue one, playing into that whole us versus them thing that Donald Trump uses so effectively.

But issue one would reduce the value of all votes, not just one parties. And we’re seeing more and more conservatives on social media saying they will vote against it because they think it’s an overreach. Laura, who’s a prominent Republican in Cuyahoga County who has joined that list.

[00:04:34] Laura: This is Lee Weingart who ran for Cuyahoga County executive last year, and he posted a Twitter with, um, a picture of the issue, wine issue one, no sign in his front yard said he’s gonna vote against it.

He said, please join me in standing up for Ohio Citizens. It’s our constitution. We need to defend it. And obviously we’ve had a long list of people, republicans who have stood up for this, uh, governors [00:05:00] and, uh, You know, people are pretty

[00:05:02] Chris: straight about it. John, Bob taf, Republican governors are against it.

Former attorneys General.

[00:05:08] Laura: Yeah. Maren O’Connor. Yeah, Jim Petro. Betty Montgomery. So it’s like people who are standing up for the state and for the people. The one, you know, giving people the power to

[00:05:19] Chris: vote. Thenm O’Connor. Come out against it. That’s what

[00:05:22] Laura: our story says. Oh, I missed, I mean, missed. That does not surprise me at

[00:05:25] Chris: all.

No, I just, I had missed that. Good for her. The, uh, Mike Curtin, uh, the former editor of dispatch, a conservative in his own right, has written a couple of really strong pieces for us about why issue one is such a terrible, terrible idea. And the piece he did this week was about how. Our constitution was created to give the power to the people that, the, that in 1912, in the Midwest in particular, people didn’t trust their government.

And so this was built so that the people would have the power to beat back power drunk [00:06:00] politicians for the very same reason. These guys are trying it again now. This is the, this is the chance for the citizens. To say no again as they did back in 1912. It was a powerful piece. People should check it out.

It’s on cleveland.com. You’re listening to today in Ohio. If this effort backfires on LaRose, Huffman, Mike DeWine, John Houston, and all the other elected leaders as spectacularly as it could centrist in the state, and those who lean left could receive a massive jolt from it and the November ballot, Layla just might have the fuel that turns that fire into C into a conflagration.

Why is that?

[00:06:40] Leila: Well, because there are two issues that could very well end up on that November ballot that are near and dear to the hearts of a lot of progressives. And those would be the proposal to enshrine enshrine reproductive rights into the Ohio Constitution, and also the proposed initiated statute that would legalize the recreational use of marijuana for people over the age of [00:07:00] 21.

That would also allow folks to grow up to six marijuana plants in their home, and we’ll know by July 25th whether backers of those issues have collected enough signatures to make the ballot. Laura Hancock points out in her story that for more than a decade, progressives have lost in statewide elections here and, and those who are in office are so outnumbered that they’ve just been steamrolled on issues like guns, for example.

So, If voters approve these two issues in November, it could really help progressives build momentum in the state, especially if issue one fails and becomes the symbol of Republican subversion of democracy in Ohio.

[00:07:39] Chris: Well, we, we’ve been saying that for a year when this first came up, we wondered whether this is such a gross overreach, uh, this attempt.

To just dismal the voter that it would have a rebound effect and, and Laura Hancock’s story makes it look like that could happen. It’s all goes down to what happens with issue one, but mm-hmm. It’s just, it’s a [00:08:00] fascinating moment that what, you know, power corrupts and absolute power corrupts Absolutely.

Matt Huffman, Frank LaRose, and these guys are trying to concentrate all the power in their hands and leave no recourse. And it could just, Blow up big time and I wonder what it means for them. One of the thing, Brent Larkin wrote a a column about this this week, ripping apart the Chamber of Commerce of Ohio for endorsing this thing, saying it clearly doesn’t represent the people of Ohio.

But he, at the very end, he said, no one should forget this, that, that this should stick to everybody that was behind it. And that includes John Huston. He’s on the ad. I support subverting the voter and he’ll be running for governor in a few years, probably. We can’t let people forget that he was trying to take away their power.

[00:08:50] Leila: What, you know, it’s, uh, I mean we, we’ve been just talking about voter turnout. Voter turnout is gonna be everything. This, this November. I mean, one, one expert told Laura that he [00:09:00] expects these issues to really get voters off the sidelines. I guess we typically see like 15 to 20% voter turnout when there are no statewide candidates on the ballot, and this could bring out 35 to 40%.

It’s really a question though, of which 40% who comes out, who, who’s, uh, most passionate about this and. Um, you know,

[00:09:18] Chris: so far Yeah, I know. Hopefully it’s a, it’s a fascinating moment to, to be watching politics in Ohio. Unprecedented in what’s going on. You’re listening to today on Ohio in the wee hours of July 4th.

For some reason, Mike DeWine announced that he had signed the states two year budget, but with. Dozens of vetoes. Lisa, what did the governor strike out and what are the big things he left

[00:09:41] Lisa: in? Yeah. He made 44 line item vetoes in this budget, which is nearly 6,200 pages long Among the big ones, he blocked a proposal that would’ve banned cities from regulating tobacco and nicotine product sales, and that would’ve o overturned existing bands in Toledo, [00:10:00] Bexley, and Columbus.

He removed a measure that would’ve allowed college students to decline mandated vaccines for enrollment, saying that religious convictions and reasons of conscience are overly broad and would and eventually compromise campus safety. Also, he rejected moves to codify some Medicaid programs into law. He said that that would’ve restricted the state’s ability to manage Medicaid programs and costs.

And another big one, he rejected a move. That would’ve allowed more childcare providers to avoid the state star ratings. If 25% or less of their capacity involves publicly funded care. The Senate wanted to raise that threshold to 50%. Um, but pre for Clee, executive director Katie Kelly says, that sounds benign, but this would’ve resulted in 80% of kids in facilities being exempt from the step up to quality star ratings.

[00:10:55] Chris: Yeah, we wondered, uh, when the budget was coming in for [00:11:00] landing, what Mike DeWine would do about the tobacco thing. Clearly, the tobacco interests had gotten into the back rooms of, of Hoffman and his colleagues. For them to do what they did. W was just so counter to public health and so favorable to tobacco companies.

It made no sense. So DeWine did the right thing. He, he went with kids, he went with public health, and he pushed back against those who seemed to be in the pocket of the. Tobacco companies, and I never understood the childcare thing. I just, why would you go that way? Why would you make it less rigid to have quality childcare and good for Mike DeWine to say no?

Did they ever really explain why they were going to reduce those requirements?

[00:11:45] Lisa: Not anything that I’ve read. And then this. Senate wanted to make it even easier. So there’s a big question mark there, but you know, on the good side, he did pray some of the big things that he did. Tax credits for mental health coverage, new incentives and penalties to improve [00:12:00] nursing home care, money for affordable housing and early childhood initiatives.

But you know, it’s unclear the legislature could reconvene and override these vetoes, but it’s unclear whether they’re gonna

[00:12:10] Chris: do that. Do you really wanna be on the floor of the house or the senate? Overriding a veto to help the tobacco companies. I mean, the beauty of doing this in the budget is they all have cover, but if it becomes a single subject thing, you’re, you’re on the line there.

And that, that’s a very risky place to be. We’ve talked about Mike DeWine not standing up to the legislature pretty much at all since he got reelected. This was standing up for a whole bunch of good causes. You know, with

[00:12:39] Laura: the childcare thing, I’m sure that, you know, it’s like the republican. Message. Right?

It’s business. It’s all, we should all let everything be governed by business and what the market wants. But I’ve talked to early childhood educators who just say, look, Matt Huffman is against quality ed, pre, you know, pre-K education, early childhood. I don’t, I’ve [00:13:00] never had a conversation with the man. I would love to, like, what do you have against?

Quality. You know, like it’s good for everyone, but I don’t understand

[00:13:08] Chris: it. Yeah, it makes no sense. It, it’s just like, it made no sense for the tobacco. I mean, it was just one of those, you’re, what are you guys thinking? Well, I think that one,

[00:13:16] Laura: well,

[00:13:17] Chris: one makes a little worse. I know, I know what it was. It’s the lobbyist run Columbus.

They’ve proven it over and over again. And, uh, Mike, the wine at least stood up to him. You’re listening to today in Ohio. State Senator Jerry Serena’s Orwellian bill to limit free speech on college campuses. While claiming to protect it did not make it into the budget even though he was on the reconciliation committee, which I think is hilarious.

He’s on the committee and he still can’t get it through. Shows you how much power he has. But another Sereno College bill was passed by the house and signed into law. It’s more buffoonery from the state Senator. That will make Ohio less attractive to smart people. Laura, what does it

[00:13:58] Laura: do? This is [00:14:00] Senate Bill one 17 that establishes independent academic centers at five of Ohio’s public university.

Serena sent out this really long self congratulatory press release about this bill saying there’s nothing like it at this scale in any other state. Maybe that shows you it’s not a great idea. Yeah, right. So he’s saying the bill is needed because ideology is replacing the lessons of history on campus.

And here’s his quote, leftist ideology has a monopoly on most college campuses that is squashing intellectual diversity and punishing, wrong think and anti woke dogma. So if you can make it through the end of that quote, his release does not include the cost of this. I believe it’s about 30. 10 million in taxpayer money and these independent academic units, uh, one’s at the University of Toledo College of Law, there’s the Ohio State University.

Uh, Miami’s getting one. The thing is Serena in his press release is like one in four Americans can’t name all three branches of government. I don’t think those are the [00:15:00] Americans in law

[00:15:00] Chris: school. Yeah, the, the, he’s the king of the culture wars in Ohio right now. He must think he’s gonna be the next Senate president.

That sentence, you read leftist, the minute you used the word leftist, you’re marking yourself an anti woke. But here’s the question, right? He went to college, right, and he’s still a stark raving. Re Republican Conservative. Our column is Ted Dyan who supports this bill, went to Kent State University during the day of Kent State University.

Has it affected him into some liberal leaning guy? The, the idea that colleges. Are preventing people from having conservative thoughts is preposterous. Colleges are big melting pots of ideas. People go in, they’re exposed to lots of things. What Serena is basically saying here is that the college students in Ohio are so dumb and impressionable that they can’t filter messages on their own, and so he has to make sure to get in and do some brainwashing.

See, [00:16:00] I

[00:16:00] Laura: also feel like it’s saying we don’t have, we need to make sure that we keep. The power for the next generation. We’ve got it locked up here. We wanna take away people’s votes for the constitution, but we wanna make sure the next generation doesn’t have a chance, so we’re going to brainwash them into our ideology because we can’t trust them to come to it on their own.

[00:16:17] Chris: Yeah. It’s, it’s just, it’s one of those that, and Mike DeWine signed this one. He actually signed this bill, which is just

[00:16:25] Laura: preposterous, but it’s, it’s another way of the double speak because it’s saying, you know, the bill wants to educate students by means of free, open, and rigorous intellectual inquiry to seek the truth.

Like who’s gonna actually argue against that statement? That’s just not the actual intent of the law. Right.

[00:16:40] Chris: You’re listening to today in Ohio. Cua County executive. Chris Ronan did the hard work and came up with a good plan and an ideal location for the new jail. But the county council, which was furious when Ronan as a candidate blasted their idea for building the jail on a contaminated site appears it will make politics over [00:17:00] policy on this one.

Layla, how did the first public discussion go down? Oh man.

[00:17:05] Leila: Well, so last week council had this two hour discussion about this proposal, and Caitlyn Durbin tells us that it quickly devolved into a fight that honestly sounded like it got pretty nasty with county executive Chris Ronin accusing council President Pernell Jones of opposing the proposed jail site in his district for political reasons.

And then, Councilman Scott Tuma at one point told Renee the honeymoon is over. So ouch. An issue here is Renee’s proposal to buy 72.1 acres in Garfield Heights to create a central services campuses campus that would not only accommodate the jail, but also. Sheriff’s administration offices, parking for employees and visitors and, and other services like the Diversion Center, behavioral health facility and, and, and reentry job training facilities.

But all that would require the county [00:18:00] to spend. 38.7 million upfront to get the full acreage they need for this campus rather than just the portion required for a new jail. And council members said that they had sticker shock over this price because the land was previously listed at a lower price of 22 million, but that was for far fewer acres, of course.

And they also said they wanna consider other sites that could keep the jail in the city of. Cleveland limits. One option would be at Eddie Road in Kirby Avenue on the city’s east side, but there would be multiple property owners involved with that transaction and, and the environmental remediation would be pretty significant compared to the Garfield Heights site, which is already clean.

Councilwoman, sunny Simon said. That doesn’t mean we can’t clean it up. Sure. It’ll be more challenging, but it can be done. And then Director of Public works, Michael Deaver responded. Yeah. 60 to a hundred million more challenging. Mm-hmm. So the discussion

[00:18:57] Chris: was hot. You know, the, the [00:19:00] idea of cleaning up contaminated land is a great idea.

We should do it. And there are plenty of businesses that can use that land, but you’re talking about having people that are wards of the county sleep. Over top of that land, it’s a no-brainer that you don’t do. It’s gonna lead to lawsuits and be all sorts of problematic. Ronan’s plan for Garfield is a good idea and in reading that story, I got the impression this is a petulant counsel.

Angry that he embarrassed them because they wanted to put it on top of benzene and just, just taking their cuts of flesh from ‘em instead of doing public policy. And I gotta tell you, the whole story made me wonder again, should we have. Should we just abandon this county charter? Because when Jane Campbell, Tim Hagen, and Tim McCormick were county commissioners, they wouldn’t have had this debate.

They would’ve said, of course we’re gonna build it in Garfield on clean land and we’re gonna do it right. There wouldn’t have been petulance and pettiness. We keep seeing that from this county [00:20:00] council. It’s not working. Yeah.

[00:20:02] Leila: Yeah. This meeting, there were felt like there was a lot of pettiness coming across.

I mean, they took issue with Renee’s sudden sense of urgency on building the jail when 10 months ago he wrote Counsel a letter telling them that they should slow down and take their time making these decisions. That came out during this. I was also really startled to see that they’re talking about potentially going back to the toxic

[00:20:23] Chris: to benzene, right?

Transport, roadside. We believe in benzene. Let’s get benzene I what and why?

[00:20:30] Leila: Why are we taking all these. Steps back. I mean, that was, I thought roundly rejected by the community and the whole thing. Of course, like there, there was no time left to talk about the proposal to pay for this project by extending that quarter percent sales tax for 40 years.

So stay tuned for that.

[00:20:47] Chris: Yeah, I just, I felt like this was vengeance. It’s you, you made us look bad. You embarrassed us with big headlines and we’re gonna make you pay. Instead of looking at this, this is objectively a good [00:21:00] proposal. This will work. It’s, it’s easy to get to, it’s close to most of the police districts.

Everything about this is good and the government of Garfield Heights wants it. So I, it just, this, I read this and thought this is dysfunction. We have complete and utter government

[00:21:16] Leila: dysfunction. I dunno if that’s a, if that points to the, to the, the form of government as much as it points to the people.

Cuz you could assemble a council. That would not behave this way,

[00:21:27] Chris: except there were council people and before we had elected officials that only represented the whole county. We have city and municipal government councils to represent local interests. We don’t need that from the county. We need the county to have the big view and do the big projects they’re tasked with and they’re thinking small.

When you had three county commissioners, they were elected countywide and they generally had the businesses heart. Put aside Jimmy DeMar. Yeah, right. He’s the poster child for corruption. But the rest [00:22:00] of ‘em, when you go back in time, they did generally the right thing. And right now this county council is not doing the right thing.

[00:22:07] Laura: I, I do think not having a, you know, council person of the whole, uh, at large council person is a flaw like that we didn’t think of 12 years ago.

[00:22:17] Chris: Yeah, it’s just, uh, Layla’s, right? It’s the people, but because of the county. Yeah, but the, the people

[00:22:21] Laura: keep getting reelected. I mean, it’s not like you can point to one shiny example of in the last 12 years, 13 years, where you’re like, that was the council that really got it together.

No,

[00:22:30] Chris: I, and part of it’s because we’re a one party system and Yes. I mean, it’s all dysfunction. But this was, this was a depressing story because this is one thing Ronan has done Right. And now he’s gonna have to battle pettiness. You’re listening to today in Ohio. Governor Mike De Wine’s office has explained more than a few times why the train wreck in East Palestine is not appropriate for a federal disaster declaration.

And now he has applied for that declaration. Lisa, what’s the reason for the [00:23:00] flip-flop?

[00:23:00] Lisa: Well, he is got a couple of reasons, but he waited till the 11th hour, I mean, on July 3rd, which was like the day of the extended FEMA deadline. You know, he requested this federal disaster declaration for the East Palestine train wreck site.

He was granted this ex. Extension back in March. And then he made another request in June for a second extension, which FEMA denied. But you know, people are saying, why did he delay so long? Well, his reasons, he said, well, Norfolk Southern Railroad is voluntarily covering the cost for affected residents, uh, which is at 62.8 million in.

Climbing and he said a request for federal aid would take Norfolk Southern off the hook for compensating East Palestine residents. And he also said that, uh, he was told that FEMA would reject the request if he send it anyway, because there’s a third party that’s liable here. But he says that a change in Norfolk Southern Management or an unfavorable court ruling.

Could end the railroad’s commitment. And you know, he said that long-term health [00:24:00] effects are still unknown. So, um, just to point out, Norfolk Southern has, like I spent nearly 63 million, they’ve opened a family assistance center. They’ve committed to long-term medical compensation with a fund, and they have another fund to compensate people for lost property values.

East Palestine resident, Jamie Wallace is. Questioning, why did it take to wind so long? You know, for him to act with this deadline looming, she says that Norfolk Southern has been generous to people who live within one mile of the derailment site, but she says it’s a crapshoot for everybody else, and this is a little bit troubling here.

She says they want independent testing of the air, soil, and water. The E P A. The national E p A and the state E p A have been out there testing every day. So what does she mean by independent testing? And if they’re asking for federal government to get involved, what are they gonna trust? What the government tells them.

So,

[00:24:58] Chris: Yeah, I think DeWine just kind of [00:25:00] caved. Thi this is not an appropriate disaster. No, I mean, thi this is tort law. If Norfolk Southern wronged these folks, then in court, they will get their recompense. That’s the way it works. This is the, the national emergency declarations are for things where there is.

No one else to blame. Mm-hmm. It’s hurricanes. It’s yeah, flooding. It’s all those kinds of things that go on. This is clearly one company causing distress and the, you have your recourse through the courts and that’s what. The message from Dewayne’s office was repeatedly, but after a bunch of residents went into Columbus and screamed and yelled about it, he caved, and he knows it’s wrong.

He explained why it’s wrong, and then he did it anyway, I guess, to save face. Right?

[00:25:47] Lisa: And of course, fema, you know, has their power to reject it. We don’t know, you know, they haven’t. Signal what they’re gonna do. They haven’t claimed you, you know, commented on claims of limiting relief to within one mile of the, of the, uh, of [00:26:00] the site.

So, yeah, it’ll be interesting see, to see how FEMA

[00:26:02] Chris: reacts. Man, who knows? This one is such a crazy one that, that maybe FEMA will be worried about the blowback. So they’ll just say, okay, fine. You’re listening to today in Ohio. There’s a lot going on in Cleveland to build a prosperous future, but none of it will matter if people are afraid to head into the city because of crime.

We had a mass shooting early Sunday stimulus watch reporter Lucas DeLee took a look at how Mayor Justin Bibb hosts to reduce violent crime with 10 million in federal dollars. Layla, what’s that plan?

[00:26:33] Leila: Well, the city recently approved spending this 10 million from the American Rescue Plan Act Money to create a long-term fund to help prevent violent crime.

The money would be housed at the Cleveland Foundation and and it would be paid out over several decades from the interest earned on the investment account. And fund programs that target the root causes of violence, particularly among young people. It sounds like a great way to build sustainability into funding [00:27:00] anti-violence program, and it’s clearly a departure from the police centric approach to violence prevention, which a lot of council members prefer, frankly.

But the problem is, in my view, What will be guiding their decisions on what programs to invest in. Justin Bibb had recently asked City Council to approve a million dollars to create a unified plan that would’ve helped coordinate efforts across this whole patchwork of anti-violence programs. So for example, the Peacemakers Alliance.

They don’t have a huge staff, but they fill a number of functions including street Outr outreach work, but perhaps they’re most effective in hospitals where they spend time with gunshot victims and their families to deescalate the anger and tension that often gives rise to retaliatory shootings with a little coordination among other anti-violence programs.

They could really focus exclusively on that work and leave outreach to other groups. But council let that proposal die in committee back in [00:28:00] February to create that, that unified approach. And Council President Blaine Griffin said they passed on it for a few reasons. One, council wanted more oversight on the specifics of the violence prevention plan and, and council wanted to make sure the money went directly to services rather than what, what Blaine Griffin called a theory session or academic exercise.

So I’m a little concerned, even though I. The, the idea is solid to invest the money and work with the, the, um, the return on the investment to fund these programs. But, but you know, violence is such a complex social problem without any roadmap to tackle it, which is what that million was supposed to create.

It’s, uh, I, I’m concerned about how this is gonna be executed.

[00:28:49] Chris: Like, I, I, we can, we’ve talked about this in a bunch of respects, but we’re, what we’re seeing lately in city after city, including Cleveland Sunday morning and what nine people were [00:29:00] shot. Mm-hmm. Um, but you know, just random shooting is people leave nightclubs and you’ve seen it.

Philadelphia’s had it, Baltimore’s had it over and over again where you didn’t see that before. And it’s almost like, People have lost their whole sense of right and wrong. And you wonder is that because from the top down, we had a president who’s the rules didn’t apply to him. You know, in Ohio we’ve got sleazy politicians trying to jam a, a very bad proposal through the ballot in August.

If, if you are a regular person and you’re seeing that all of the people in power. Don’t play by the rules. Maybe nobody plays by the rules. I cannot imagine what gets into somebody’s head to just spray bullets into a crowd. That didn’t happen 10, 15 years ago, and it’s happening every weekend now, somewhere in America.

[00:29:49] Leila: Uh, it’s a good theory that I, that you’re putting forth regarding the, the, uh, uh, top down, the trickle down effect of, of just, [00:30:00] you know, disregarding the rules. But I, I don’t know. I don’t know if that’s what’s causing this, this level of violence on the streets. I think it comes from, from poverty. I’m not sure that, that, that.

So many people are paying attention to who’s breaking the rules at the top and who’s, I mean, I think people feel disregarded and that that’s the thing that trickles down, but we’ve had poverty is that sense of hopelessness and, and,

[00:30:23] Chris: uh, we’ve had poverty forever. And then something is triggering just.

This massive, reckless wave of shootings. No one’s gonna come downtown. Hey, that this is, this is gonna destroy downtowns across America because it’s happening so regularly. This, what was it at sixth Street, right? Mm-hmm. I mean, it was right downtown. Oh yeah. Warehouse. District area. Yeah. Yeah. Um, so you’re seeing shooting, it’s two 30 in the morning, but still it’s, uh, I don’t know.

It’s, uh, it’s interesting that they’re trying to use the money differently. Uh, and they’re trying to get more at the root cause. The, you know, the second factor is they gotta get more police, [00:31:00] but there were police on patrol on Sunday mornings. So what, I don’t know. We’ll see you’re listening to today in Ohio.

That does it for the Monday episode. We didn’t get to all of our stories. I didn’t think we would, but we’ll be back Tuesday with another episode of the news podcast from cleveland.com and the Plain Dealer. Thanks, Lisa. Thanks, Laura. Thanks Layla. Thanks everybody who listens.