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

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

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

On PodParadise, find us here.

And on PlayerFM, we are here.

Chris Quinn (00:00.716)

It’s been a while since we talked about Vice President, JD Vance, Ohio’s own. We’re talking about him now on 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 Courtney Astolfi and Lisa, you get Vance. Why is Vance proud to be called a conspiracy theorist?

Lisa Garvin (00:21.754)

you

I think it’s cause he can’t help but be a sycophant for Trump, but you know, this is all stemming from that explosive article in Vanity Fair with White House chief of staff, Suzy Wiles, where she kind of took some truth serum. And in that interview, she called Vance a conspiracy theorist for a decade. But Vance, instead of rebuking that, leaned in. He said, I only believe in conspiracy theories that are true.

This was at a Pennsylvania appearance over the weekend. And he said that it turns out the conspiracy theories are just something that’s true six months before the media admits it. And he defended Wiles. A lot of Republicans have defended Wiles. He says he’s never seen her subvert Trump’s will. And some of the conspiracy theories he’s proud of, he says,

I believed it was stupid to mask three year olds during the pandemic, even as the World Health Organization didn’t recommend masks for people under five. He also said he believed that the government and media covered up Biden’s fitness for office. He was clearly unable to do his job. And then he said he believed in the conspiracy theory that Biden wanted to jail his political opponents of setting winning arguments against them. But Biden

used independent prosecutors when he went after Trump, not the Department of Justice like Trump is doing. And he said in the end, says, I hope the lesson is that we should be giving fewer interviews to mainstream media outlets.

Chris Quinn (01:49.74)

The problem here is he’s one of the promoters of the biggest lies of the past couple years where he accused Haitians in Springfield, Ohio of eating their neighbors’ pets. It was complete nonsense. He’s from Ohio. These were his constituents as a senator. And it was a thing he repeated on one of the Sunday talk shows just weeks ago.

which it’s that’s just not a conspiracy theory. That is a seriously damaging claim branding an entire class of people, villainizing them is for political gain. He’s despicable for that kind of thing. And like you said, Biden never told the Justice Department, go get my enemies. They put a special prosecutor on it and the prosecutors go where the evidence takes them. Whereas Donald Trump

Lisa Garvin (02:39.366)

Mm-hmm.

Chris Quinn (02:46.24)

tells Pam Bondi jump and she jumps. It’s unbelievable how hard he’s trying to get Letitia James indicted, but grand jurors won’t do it because there is no case. And Donald Trump’s history in real estate is identical to what he’s accusing her of. This is the conspiracy madness in the White House and our vice president from Ohio is a part of it.

Lisa Garvin (03:12.42)

Well, it seems like a lot of the GOP stalwarts are trying to normalize misinformation. mean, remember Jim Jordan just a couple of weeks ago was saying, you know, today’s misinformation is tomorrow’s truth. And Vance is saying, you know, I believe these conspiracies. It seems like they’re trying to normalize these fringe theories.

Chris Quinn (03:31.304)

What you do is you leave your base unable to rely on any facts. And so you become their sole source. They believe only what you say because you’ve completely destroyed the foundations of belief. We can’t have conversations with MAGA folks because we don’t work from the same reality. We work from reality. They work from false information.

But that’s because people like Vance and Trump and all the MAGA folks put out their nonsense that then gets parroted by Fox News. It’s sad that he’s proud to say he’s a believer in these conspiracy theories. It’s just not true. He’s a believer in falsehoods, and he’s laughing about it like it’s funny. And it’s not funny. I mean, you are undermining the fabric of America by trying to cause us all to be on a tower of babble.

You’re listening to Today in Ohio. With electric bills in Ohio at a seeming all time high for many of us, how might Ohio try to provide a means to some relief? Laura, I feel like we’re way behind on this. Other states did this a long time ago.

Laura (04:41.686)

Yes, and basically there’d be a demand response program where you could sign up and if the utilities needed, if it was a high peak, they could temporarily adjust your thermostat or your water heater to make more room for other customers. And then those customers would receive bill credits or other incentives for basically either turning down your heat in the winter, turning down your air conditioning so you’re going to be a little bit warmer. Maybe you won’t have such warm water. And Palden County Republican Representative Roy

Plotthenstein told lawmakers back in August that this would help utilities avoid purchasing costly additional power, give them a smarter, more affordable option. I mean, it seems like a small thing. I don’t know how many people would voluntarily opt into this. It’s certainly not going to solve the power problem that could just keep getting worse.

Chris Quinn (05:29.652)

I look, I’ve seen it in other states. There is a downside to this. When the weather is at its hottest, your air conditioner gets turned off. When you need heat the most, your heat may not be on what you want it to be. When you give the utility control over your appliances, you don’t get to use them. And I know they’re saying, well, you could override it, but I don’t know how many people are familiar with that.

I’m glad they’re trying to figure out a way to reduce costs. I cannot believe my electric bills the last few months. They’re the highest they’ve ever been by far. mean, it’s just staggering. And I don’t have much that’s electric. We basically have a refrigerator and a little bit of electric heat and it’s staggering. It’s just, it’s completely out of control. So if it’s hitting me, it’s hitting everybody. I imagine we ought to find a way to make it cheaper. And I think the way to do that is to put these costs on these data centers.

Laura (06:03.426)

Mm-hmm.

Laura (06:25.866)

Mm-hmm. Absolutely.

Chris Quinn (06:25.888)

that are sucking the power grid dry. They don’t provide any benefit. There’s this bogus report that the Chamber of Commerce put out about thousands of jobs, completely fictitious. There’s not a big financial benefit. And they’ve gotten all these great breaks. They’ve sucked up our grid. There are a whole lot of people now worried about the environmental damage. And Ohio has just welcomed them like they’ve welcomed fracking.

Laura (06:50.734)

Yeah, I completely 100 % agree with you. It feels a little bit like recycling and that we’re putting the onus on the consumer, which is actually a very, very small part of the problem here. Right? Like I feel guilty if I throw something plastic away, but like tons of corporations are just polluting the environment every day. It’s the same idea that these data centers are sucking everybody dry, but I feel like, oh God, like I better sweat in my bed tonight because I’m hurting the environment by using my air conditioning. So.

Chris Quinn (07:17.817)

Ha

Laura (07:18.642)

Yeah, I definitely put the onus where it belongs. We are going to find out today about the PJM auction to find out how that went. If we’re to have enough power, how expensive it’s going to be in the future. And the scariest quote in this story was the advanced energy policy director. And he said, when all else fails, we are looking at rolling blackouts. If capacity auction is short enough, it may be difficult to keep the lights on for everybody. We are in 2025.

We talk about artificial intelligence all the time, but we’re not going be able to keep the lights on for people? That’s crazy.

Chris Quinn (07:53.164)

Okay, you’re listening to Today in Ohio. Part of Ohio Governor Mike DeWine’s revolution and how the state teaches kids to read was to change how future teachers are trained in colleges. An audit of the colleges turned up some failures on that front, including here in Cleveland. Courtney, how are they missing the mark?

Courtney (08:13.479)

Yeah, this new state audit flagged 10 Ohio universities, including CSU, OSU, Ohio University, and the University of Toledo for not complying with the new science of reading law and the requirements that are imposed on future teachers as they’re getting trained up to become teachers. Now we heard from state officials, they say the schools largely did meet the standards, but they were dinged because

their education program still included at least one reading method in the curriculum that’s not that science of reading method, which is really what the state only wants to see being taught in these schools. We heard from the chancellor of the Ohio Department of Higher Education and in CSU’s case here, they met 72 out of 73 metrics measured that one section where they fell short according to the university.

came down to a single textbook that was in use that included some literacy teaching methods that weren’t science of reading. So as a result of this audit, CSU a couple of weeks ago replaced that one textbook. And if that all shakes out, I imagine they’ll pass the next review from the state. And DeWine acknowledged as much here. He said that many of these 10 colleges are teaching science of reading very well. They just need to completely drop.

any mention of those alternatives.

Chris Quinn (09:38.614)

Yeah, and I’m really bothered by the closed mindedness of this. Look, if you want to become a barista and you want to study how to make coffee, there’s lots of ways you can make coffee, right? Cold drip, could percolate it, you could use Nespresso machines, lots of ways to do it to end up with a good cup of coffee. And your employer may want you to use one method, but being a qualified barista, you’d need to know about all the methods, right? If I’m learning to teach reading,

Why shouldn’t I know about the other philosophies of how to do it, even though we’re focused in Ohio right now on one? We’re not gonna let teachers know about the other ways that get there? None of these methods is bad. It’s just Ohio has decided to go with phonics for now after having not gone with it. To not even let teachers in training know?

other methods? You can’t even mention that there are other ways to get there so they’re well-rounded? What kind of colleges are we having when we’re blocking out free thought?

Courtney (10:44.789)

I had that same reaction, Chris. It feels a little draconian to say you must not learn about other alternatives. We can only teach you about one thing. I would think, I mean, if science of reading is the way that the state wants to go, at least for now, okay, of course they need to be versed on that, but you think learning those other methods could even clue you into perhaps why science of reading is better or superior or, you know, why you’d prefer to use it. Also, you don’t know what’s coming down the road.

What if the state changes again in 10 years? Are all these teachers left in the dark? I don’t know, it just feels way too draconian to me, but

Chris Quinn (11:20.362)

Well, I mean, it closes out discussion and thought. I mean, we believe in democracy. So should our colleges not have any mention of societies that are communist or socialist or or what have you? I mean, we don’t want people to understand that there are different forms of governance. only want them to be brainwashed into ours because we believe it’s best. This just. I just I get it that that the governor has decided.

Laura (11:42.402)

That’s probably Jerry Serino’s next bill.

Chris Quinn (11:49.674)

we need to change the way we address reading. A lot of people agree with them. clinging Cleveland State because a textbook says there’s another way and not wanting the future teachers to know about it. We just want robots then it’s we don’t want people that can think or consider. I’m very disappointed in this story.

Courtney (12:10.645)

What struck me too is like we don’t even know if they’re teaching those other methods. They could just be mentioned in an old textbook.

Chris Quinn (12:17.642)

Well, look, there’s also special education, right? That some methods don’t work for all kids. And if a kid is falling behind, maybe you try some other methods to help them along. But if you don’t even know they exist, you’re kind of bereft. Maybe we’re missing something on this one, but it seems so close minded. I just don’t think our colleges should be places where minds are closed. You’re listening to Today in Ohio.

Ohio is not the only state where merging school districts might be a solution to what ails the education system. What are some other states considering it, Lisa, and why?

Lisa Garvin (12:47.93)

Thank

Lisa Garvin (12:53.754)

Well, actually in Wisconsin, lawmakers there passed bills to provide money to school districts to consolidate by 2026-2028. It would be a one-time $2,000 per student in the first year of consolidation, but it excludes the Milwaukee Public School District. The state money would go to low-income districts without a tax base to afford a merger, and then they’re also authorizing a consolidation feasibility study.

So in Wisconsin, 70 % of their school districts have declining enrollment. They have 53,000 fewer students since 2013, 2014. Now in Pennsylvania, they’re considering a bill by a democratic lawmaker that calls for reducing the number of school districts there from 500 to 100, but a similar 2009 bill with the same goal by the Pennsylvania governor at the time never went anywhere.

There are the concerns about building overcrowding, school closures and staff layoffs. But the group New America’s Education Funding Equity Initiative created three scenarios for Ohio. One would be aligning districts with county lines. That would make 607 districts here go down to 88 because we have 88 counties.

merging with neighboring districts, that would bring the number down to 163 districts, and then create new boundaries, just basically a blank slate. That would bring the number of school districts in Ohio down to 156. Project Director Sahava Stadler says that mergers should be done in ways that reduce racial and economic segregation. They found that if you draw boundaries by county,

that would actually increase tax-based equity by 56%. It would reduce racial segregation by over 52 % and poverty disparities by 74%.

Chris Quinn (14:47.946)

I also think if you had bigger districts, you would not see the kind of nonsense that we see right now in the Riverside School District in Lake County. And we’ve seen elsewhere where the election is so small, you get myopic crazy people who are dictating policy that has huge ramifications. I mean, they’re up there trying to fire the superintendent, even though they’re lame ducks. And it’s awful, which we’ll be talking about.

But that is a way of avoiding that. If you have a bigger pool of voters, you’re much less likely to get fringe people into decision-making roles.

Lisa Garvin (15:26.616)

And it seems like that the fringe people, they’re focusing on school boards. You know, we’ve seen that in recent years. So yeah, they’re getting the fringiest people to run and counting on voters not really knowing who the candidates are.

Chris Quinn (15:31.071)

Right.

Chris Quinn (15:39.372)

Yeah, and I don’t think that would happen if you had a much wider population voting. You’re listening to Today in Ohio. Cleveland City Council President Blaine Griffin was pretty direct in dealing with the misbehavior of Councilman Joe Jones earlier this year. So Courtney, how does he justify giving a boatload of cash to Jones’s campaign?

Courtney (15:59.335)

Yeah, we learned in campaign finance reports, Griffin kicked $6,000 to Jones’s reelection campaign. And that came after a year of Griffin, you know, publicly putting Jones actions on blast and trying to come down hard on him. But when Bush came to shove, he gave him the money to help him get reelected. And we’re only learning that now because of when we get to see those campaign finance reports. This donation came in October.

before the general election. So it would have helped Jones win that seat. Now, when we went to Griffin to ask him about this, he said he donated to Jones after residents down in the Lee Harvard neighborhood reached out and asked for him to do so. So that’s his reasoning there. Right.

Chris Quinn (16:45.003)

Yeah, right. Yeah, that that’s believable. Yeah, that’s what voters and the words do. Hey, doesn’t the council president have a big fund and he could donate to our candidate? Come on. I’ll bet if you went out on the street and asked 100 people, what what kind of money does the city council president have for campaigns? They’d have no clue. I suspect what happened here is Jones won the primary big time going away.

Griffin realized Jones was coming back to council. Griffin wanted to remain council president, needed Jones to be in his corner, so provided him the money to keep him in line. He gave money to Mike Polenski too, even though he supported Polenski’s opponent and ultimately did keep the presidency. The idea that people in a neighborhood are reaching out to the council president to give financial support to their candidate, come on.

Courtney (17:39.731)

Right. I mean, that’s just not, not very believable given all the circumstances. This clearly seems like a political, I mean, it’s, on its face, a political move to help maintain Griffin’s power. don’t know how you could read it any other way. You know, Griffin also told us that he can’t punish Jones forever. 2026 will be a new term. He said he’s met with Jones to discuss how to correct his behavior going forward. But again, I

I don’t know, you gotta look at the actions here, not the words.

Chris Quinn (18:10.164)

Yeah, I don’t know why he didn’t just say it. Look, he was coming back to council. I’m building my team. I support the people on my team. He’s clearly going to be on my team. Just be honest about it. That’s what this is about. Yeah, it’s like if he’s coming back, I want him to be in my camp. We don’t need division on the council. But people reached out to please support him. One, he didn’t need any support. He squashed all the candidates who posed him. I think he got the most votes of any council.

Courtney (18:20.255)

Right, I’m buying political support.

Chris Quinn (18:39.468)

Candidate in the entire city at least in the primary so it’s not like he needed the silly silly silly

Courtney (18:44.841)

Think about, think about if you’re that long time council staffer who was threatened by Jones. That’s, that’s gotta hurt to see your boss go around and do that.

Chris Quinn (18:51.316)

Yeah.

Yeah, I know, I know. You’re listening to Today in Ohio. Lakefront housing is prized in Cuyahoga County and there’s only so much lakefront to go around. Laura, which suburb has a fairly large site that it wants to develop for an entirely new set of lakefront housing?

Laura (19:12.04)

Euclid. They want to transform the former St. Robert Church site on Lakeshore Boulevard into a residential housing complex. And they’re asking developers to submit ideas for this eight-acre property that is along Lake Erie and the Euclid Lakefront Trail. So this is prime real estate because that lakefront trail, it’s about three quarters of a mile last time I checked and it’s going to extend. And there’s not a lot of lakefront trails on Lake Erie. So they want mixed housing that emphasizes owner-occupied

detached and attached sing including town homes. And s been cleared. So there’s parking lot remaining. developed and the Euclid De wants to offer down payment eligible first time home purchase price of $273, they’re going to be afforda If you want to buy a house

Chris Quinn (20:06.986)

The trick though is you’ve got to use quality enough materials to keep it warm when that winter wind blows off the lake. I love the idea of more housing on the lakefront because more people should be able to experience it, but you’ve got to make sure that it’s weather tight because the weather does come in off the lake.

Laura (20:12.824)

Mm-hmm.

Laura (20:29.706)

Absolutely. And you have to make sure there’s enough. Well, the good thing about the lakefront trail is they’ve worked on the erosion because you get lakefront land somewhere else. You might be looking at less lakefront land in the future, right, because of erosion. So Euclid is addressing this. They’re very forward thinking when it comes to development in the lake. So I can’t wait to see this. mean, we know there are other parcels some places and putting smaller houses on it so more people can enjoy it rather than an 80

eight acre mansion site, that’s a good thing.

Chris Quinn (20:59.776)

Yeah, that trail that they’ve built there is quite something. It’s really the legacy of the Mayor Kristen Holsheimer Gale.

Lisa Garvin (21:04.846)

Yeah, and the fact that the trail there means that the houses won’t have a private beach when they’re built.

Laura (21:11.2)

Right. Right.

Chris Quinn (21:12.084)

Yeah, I mean that trail is just something special. think the vision to bring it off to make it something, it really adds something to Euclid.

Laura (21:23.406)

And it’s become like a beacon for all around the Great Lakes of what you can do in these land areas where everything is privately owned. So we’ll have to see its legacy.

Chris Quinn (21:34.22)

You’re listening to Today in Ohio. We’ve learned a lot in recent years about how traumatic brain injuries early in life result in Alzheimer’s and dementia later in life. We’ve seen quite a bit of it in football players, for example. Lisa, has Case Western Reserve University discovered a way to combat that result?

Lisa Garvin (21:52.495)

You know, what they found, they did a study that’s being published in the Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease, and they found that there’s an increased risk of developing, traumatic brain injuries increase the risk of developing Alzheimer’s later in life because there’s prolonged inflammation on the brain and it damages brain cells over time. But they found that if they treat these injuries within one week of the incident, they can reduce the Alzheimer’s risk by up to 41%.

They analyzed over 100 million patient records and then they looked at 37,000 patients aged 50 to 90 with moderate to severe brain injury. Those who were treated within a week, as I said, 41 % lower risk after three years, 30 % lower risk after five years. And that’s compared to delayed treatment of TBIs.

The lead author who is a med student at case, Austin Kenimer says acting quickly matters in the long term. It could really be a sea change on how ERs and hospitals handle traumatic brain injuries. It is the leading cause of death and disability for people aged one to 44, over two and a half million cases a year, 50,000 of them fatal. 80,000 people are permanently disabled by TBIs. And the biggest cause of TBIs

is false at 28%.

Chris Quinn (23:15.869)

Yeah, it’s another example of the tremendous healthcare research that’s done in our hospital systems. This is a, it seems like it’s a major breakthrough in some…

Lisa Garvin (23:25.794)

This is a big deal. This reminds me back in the day when they discovered that if they gave people TPA, a clot buster, as soon as they got to the hospital or even in the ambulance, they actually survived their stroke. So this is a huge change in first response treatment.

Chris Quinn (23:42.208)

I was thinking the same thing. was about 30 years ago now that that became the standard up until then. If you had a stroke, you were just, it was luck if you came out of it and TPA completely changed it. And this seems like exactly the same kind of thing, just longer, longer term results. So big deal. You’re listening to today in Ohio. It’s not often we see the breakup of a massive drug ring that’s accused of causing multiple deaths. What are the details we got Tuesday, Laura?

Lisa Garvin (23:46.136)

Mm-hmm.

Lisa Garvin (23:56.132)

Mm-hmm.

Laura (24:11.95)

This is more than three dozen people, large scale drug ring with as 180 count secret indictment. We’re talking about trafficking, fentanyl, cocaine, heroin, meth and other narcotics. They’re charged with three fatal overdoses in the past few years and the offenses span September 2022 to August 2025. Things like racketeering, involuntary manslaughter that are linked to those deaths and the possession of fentanyl related compounds.

So police all work together. They raided 12 locations. seized vehicles, 15 guns and more than 13 pounds of drugs, $240,000 in cash.

Chris Quinn (24:49.396)

This is a big one. We haven’t seen one like this in a while. And when they do that, it usually results from weeks, months, even years of work to try and figure out where the leaders are. So it’ll be interesting to see what kind of sentences these folks get as they go through the system.

Laura (25:04.874)

Absolutely. It does really show the necessity of police departments working together to get, you know, such a big ring because you have to know who the leaders are.

Chris Quinn (25:14.828)

You’re listening to Today in Ohio. Well, like I said earlier, the Riverside School District in Lake County is reeling from the silly but far reaching childishness of two lame duck school board members intent on firing the superintendent before they go. What’s the latest in that quest, Courtney?

Courtney (25:32.379)

Yeah, the board majority, two of whom are on their way out the door and not that many days. They moved forward on Monday with termination proceedings against Superintendent Christopher Rotino. During that brief special hearing earlier this week, they voted along the same lines they’ve been voting until now. There’s a split on the board, but that majority came out ahead. They scheduled Rotino’s termination hearing for January 4th. That hearing per state law is

to be overseen by a state-appointed referee. And that’s kind of, Rotino formally requested that hearing earlier this month. So while all that process is going through, a few days before that hearing, the people pushing for this are going to be largely out of office. And that’s President Scott Fischl and Vice President Dennis Keeney. The third member who’s been on board with booting Rotino, Denise Brewster, will remain in her seat.

And we’ve got two new folks coming on here in a couple of weeks. In the same move this week, the outgoing majority installed an interim superintendent, Robert Scott. He works with the Educational Service Center of the Western Reserve.

Chris Quinn (26:44.576)

You do have to wonder why they’re going through this trouble because this can all be undone in two weeks, right? The new board members come in, get sworn in, there’s a new majority and they can end this because it’s just silly. The town, the people in the district are behind the superintendent. Why go through this trouble? Why create all this anger? Why create enemies throughout the district where you’ve served when

it will not have any permanence.

Courtney (27:16.915)

Yeah, you know, reporter Molly Walsh has been covering this diligently and encourage folks to check out her deep dive from last week, explaining where all this turmoil comes from. pretty much the outgoing board is mad that Rotino went to the public and explained some financial concerns with the Buckeye Elementary renovation project. So that’s a big part of this beef. The board wants to spend less money on it. Rotino went to the public and said, if we want to do it right, we got to spend a little more.

Chris Quinn (27:46.548)

Yeah, I just I don’t get why they’re they’re pushing this they’re they’re going into the face of increasing resistance They’re two weeks away from being kicked out. Why? I nobody’s really been able to explain and I guess they’re not being very public, right?

Courtney (28:01.233)

they haven’t talked to us at all. They just sent over some documents and left it at that. But it’s also worth noting there’s a big important money fight going on around the same project. The courts have stepped in and stopped this outgoing majority from permanently moving nearly $5 million out of the school’s general fund. We’ve got to see where the court action takes that move next. But again, they’re racing the clock on really big moves here when they’re lame ducks.

Chris Quinn (28:27.828)

Yeah, it’s bizarre. Alright, you’re listening to Today in Ohio. That’s it for the Wednesday episode. Thanks, Lisa. Thanks, Laura. Thanks, Courtney. Thank you for listening. We’ll return Thursday to talk about the news.