Why is a lawyer on a one-man mission to block solar farms and wind turbines in Ohio? Today in Ohio

CLEVELAND, Ohio — Attorney Jack Van Kley is the go-to guy to fight clean energy projects in Ohio.

We’re talking about who’s funding the lawsuits against solar and wind 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:

Who’s the lawyer who is on a one-man mission to block green energy projects across Ohio?

We’ve talked about this a bit recently, and now we’re hearing from elected officials. Why has Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine been a no-show in combatting the terror of crime in Cleveland caused by easy access to guns and stolen cars?

How can Senator J.D. Vance both boast about the defense bill and justify voting against it?

In the debate about whether a new Cuyahoga County jail needs to be in Cleveland’s downtown, distance matters. We’re talking about the distance police have to travel to bring accused criminals there. Reporters Kaitlin Durbin and Zachary Smith have done all the calculations. What are their findings?

If we can’t stop school shootings, how much money can companies make trying to harden schools against them? Reporter Jake Zuckerman looked the some efforts to profit from America’s awful trend. Who is behind them?

Who is paying for all the ads both for and against Issue 1 in the Aug. 8 special election?

Can Cuyahoga County ever move forward? Are more squabbles likely to get in the way of progress on what to do about renovating or building a courthouse? Who are the players in the latest conflict?

Where are the trees going in the latest effort by Cuyahoga County to increase the region’s tree canopy and cool things down?

Today is the final work day for the newsroom’s longest-serving employee, videographer Dave Andersen, who started as newspaper photographer in 1979. Reporter Julie Andersen grabbed him before he heads out the door. What are some of the highlights of Dave’s career?

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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: It’s the last day of July. Laura, I can officially say it. Summer is winding down, but the news is not, and the news is what we talk about on today in Ohio. It’s the news podcast. Discussion from cleveland.com and the plane dealer. I’m Chris Quinn. Here with Lisa Garvin, Laura Johnston, and Layla Tassi Coming off a pretty good weekend.

Few left before kids go back to school. Hope we enjoy ‘em. Let’s begin. Who is the lawyer who is on a one man mission to block green energy projects across Ohio? Laura, this is one of the strangest stories we’ve had. ‘cause there’s not a whole lot of riches to be gained in this. There’s not a lot of well-funded people fighting this, but this lawyer’s making a living at it.

[00:00:45] Laura: Yeah, from people apparently selling, you know, cookies to in, in a bake sale to raise money for, to hire him. His name is Jack Van Cly and he is the lawyer you go to if you wanna block a green energy project in Ohio. He’s currently [00:01:00] got four organizations before the Supreme Court asking for to kill four separate permits, and this would be solar panels over thousands of rural Ohio acres, the stuff that is carbon free energy.

And then he’s. Since 2019, just four years ago, FOTA currently is fighting 14 wind and solar projects around the state. He’s asking state regulators to reject these applications to build, and even when he doesn’t win, it’s so expensive for the companies, they sometimes back up and say, okay, we’re not gonna do this.

So, It’s the townships that are hiring them to, to him, to fight these projects. They’re saying, you know, that the solar panels are too close to their houses and they’re noisy, and maybe things could be leaching into the soil. And even if they’re not detrimental to the environment, they just don’t look.

Country enough and they don’t like them. So the question of is, who’s paying for this guy? Right? The townships themselves say, okay, well we’re, we’re [00:02:00] using township money or we are selling having bake sales to raise tens of thousands of dollars to pay this attorney. Because there isn’t a giant payoff. You don’t win millions of dollars at the end, you just win, saying you can’t build

[00:02:12] Leila: here.

[00:02:13] Chris: I do understand the, the opposition. If you live near one of these, you live across a field that’s filled with flora and fauna, and all of a sudden it’s filled with gigantic mirrors or reflecting surfaces. Um, but it, but it. That seems like something you could deal with pretty easily by requiring a halfway decent plant buffer to keep it from invading your, your view.

Mm-hmm. Uh, I just am surprised that the vehement that there is in these communities against it, it’s almost, it’s almost like it’s partisan nonsense like, It. The, oh, not in

[00:02:49] Laura: Ohio, Chris Partisan not, no, but, but

[00:02:52] Chris: I mean, solar energy is, is just about free. Once you put the collectors out there, you’ve got the energy and [00:03:00] it doesn’t harm the environment.

And I would think that would be a universal good, but have we so poisoned the atmosphere with the battle over whether climate change is real, that conservatives are just dead set against anything that’s green energy.

[00:03:15] Laura: Well, that’s possible. Although this summer, I feel like if you don’t believe in climate change, you are just burying your head in the sand.

But I mean, that’s, it is everything. You know, we talked about this in the Civil discourse project, right? Everything is in us versus them, and in this case, the green energy is the them and they don’t want it. So they’re selling T-shirts to raise money. The thing is, there’s this question of. Is it really just the townships or are they being funded by someone else?

Is this really just the traditional energy companies using them as a front because they don’t want green energy because they wanna keep burning coal and doing whatever to keep their. Part of the prophets. I

[00:03:54] Chris: love Jake Zuckerman’s reporting. I do. We’ll be talking about another of his story later, but man, he’s got an eye for [00:04:00] what’s interesting.

I I the, the, there are some points in this that you do walk away wondering. The, the lawyer makes the case that the rules don’t require a big enough buffer. Is that true? Should the, but he’s also saying

[00:04:12] Laura: there’s not a single project in the entire state and probably not the entire country that he would think.

Meets the standards of his own. So if you can’t even pro point to like a model project, like you think this is the way it should work, then are you re really looking for standards or are you really just saying, Nope, no, it, it’s never gonna be good enough.

[00:04:31] Chris: Amen. Interesting story. It’s on cleveland.com.

Check it out. You’re listening to today in Ohio. We’ve talked about this a bit recently, and now we’re hearing from elected officials. Why has Ohio Governor Mike DeWine been a no-show in combating the terror of crime in Cleveland caused by easy access to guns and stolen cars and lay? I do wanna point out again, I think he’s made three trips to East Palestine.

Mm-hmm. And thrown all sorts of money at those folks, and nobody died there.

[00:04:58] Leila: Right. Officials up [00:05:00] here feel that DeWine hasn’t been visible enough in supporting cities that are reeling from this terrible stretch of gun violence and car thefts and crime sprees. Mayor Bibb and, and, and Councilman Mike Ensi say they have reached out to DeWine.

I. To ask for assistance from the Ohio State Highway Patrol. The state has helped with traffic enforcement since May, and they should begin handling some criminal cases in the city. Dee’s office says he is allocated about nine and a half million dollars in covid funds to reduce violent crime in Cleveland, provide law enforcement with retention bonuses to keep more officers on the street.

And cut down on the backlogs in court cases and crime labs. And also DeWine pushed the Ohio Narcotics Intelligence Center to help law local law enforcement with fighting drug related violent crime. But you know, they say DeWine hasn’t done enough from a policy perspective that either he has signed too many laws that have contributed to the proliferation of guns, or he hasn’t done enough to support low-income [00:06:00] families to address the fallout of poverty.

That can lead to. To crime. I mean, it’s a little unclear what the ask is, but I think a little visibility of the governor on this issue would make a big difference for the public officials and police who are grappling with it.

[00:06:14] Chris: Yeah. He hasn’t come to Cleveland or any other city to say Exactly. This will not stand.

We’re going to have to take care of this. And Cleveland is like, Old cowboy town, people are getting cars, stealing them left and right, bouncing all over town with their guns and and causing serious issues. You would think a governor who cares about the entire state would show up to tell people, I’m with you here.

I’m working on this. Here’s what I propose to do.

[00:06:40] Leila: Right. Exactly. Yeah. Haven’t heard heard from him at

[00:06:44] Chris: all. Well, maybe we will soon. You’re listening to today in Ohio. Alright, Lisa, how can Senator j d Vance both boast about the defense bill and then justify voting against it, I guess, in Ohio? Why not? Right.

[00:06:59] Lisa: Well, he did [00:07:00] claim that he worked to secure as many wins as possible for his state of Ohio, but Senator j d Vance was one of only 11 senators to vote against the 2024 National Defense Authorization bill. He said he couldn’t support it. In total because of the extension through 2027 of funding the Ukraine, you know, security assistance funding the Ukraine War.

He said it’s very disappointing that these priorities would, that would benefit. Ohioans are bogged down with such deeply problematic foreign policy proposals. But let’s not forget, he’s. Kind of been against the Ukraine war from the beginning. I think it was during his campaign. He is like, I don’t care about the Ukraine.

So, I mean, this is not new, but, uh, Senator Sherrod Brown, his colleague voted yes on the the bill. He said there are several amendments that he was glad got included, including the Fend Off Fentanyl Act that targets supply chains in China and Mexico. Also monitoring the risk. Of corporations investing in foreign [00:08:00] competitors to prevent them from buying up Ohio farmland and businesses and to prevent construction delays at the Intel project.

Didn’t know there were delays there, but these were all included in the National Defense Authorization bill because they are. You know, based on national security

[00:08:15] Chris: grounds. So you gotta think if we were back in the thirties and he was a senator, he’d be holding up the defense bill there because of any money going to fight Germany, taking over the country.

Mm-hmm. He’s an isolationist, doesn’t think we should be involved in foreign disputes, even though history shows that that kind of appeasement is almost always a disaster. And I

[00:08:36] Lisa: noticed that he talked about as many wins as possible to plane dealer in the cleveland.com, but he didn’t, uh, enumerate what those wins were.

[00:08:44] Chris: Yeah, he’s, he, I, I’m amazed He’s a former Marine too. I’m just surprised he doesn’t understand history enough to know that what’s happening in Ukraine affects us all and has long range ramifications. You’re listening to today in Ohio in the debate [00:09:00] about whether a new Cuyahoga County jail needs to be in Cleveland’s downtown.

Distance matters. We’re talking about the distance police have to travel to bring accused criminals. There reporters, Caitlin Durbin and Zachary Smith have done all the calculations. Layla, what are their findings?

[00:09:16] Leila: Well, the upshot here is that county executive, Chris Roane was correct when he said that the Garfield Heights location for the jail would shave driving time for local, for law enforcement agencies.

When you look at the average time it takes to get there from all of the police departments and and Cleveland precincts, that’s measuring the distance to the current downtown site and compared to the drive times from other locations. That have been under consideration. So on the east side of Cleveland, near Eddie and Kirby Roads, that’s one alternative.

And the transport road site that was rejected because of its benzene contamination. So that’s kind of the bird’s eye view of, of the county. But Kaitlyn and Zach point out that those results should be weighted based on where the majority of the [00:10:00] inmates are coming from a department that only sends a handful of inmates to the jail each year.

Should be less important to the equation than a department that sends thousands Volume of inmates is, is probably the most important consideration when we’re talking about the impact of distance to the jail because it, it not only means a hardship for the family members of those inmates who are going there for visits, but but also the commute.

Takes officers off the streets while they’re transporting detainees. So of the 443 people who were brought to the county jail during the week of June 11th, which was sort of the sample we looked at, more than 40% were booked by the sheriff’s office, and deputies actually don’t make a lot of arrests.

Those numbers reflect people who were sentenced to jail time. Any person picked up on a county warrant and and anyone who violates their. Their electronic monitoring conditions. So if we strip those out, those numbers out, the next highest contributor is Cleveland Police. 32% of those arrests are of all the total arrests from that, that period were from Cleveland, Cleveland, [00:11:00] and Kaitlyn and Zach’s analysis found that from every Cleveland Police district, the Garfield Heights site would be the most convenient choice.

It shaves minutes off the commute over the current drive to downtown Yuko Police. C M H A, maple Heights and Bedford Heights came after Cleveland in terms of number of people booked and C M H A and Euclid officers would have a shorter drive to Garfield, but Bedford Heights and Maple Heights officers would be on the road longer.

And then C M H A and Maple Heights would be closer to the Eddie Kirby jail. And the commute for Bedford Heights would, would remain the same. Euclid officers travel, travel a little longer to get to that site. Um, so. It’s, uh, only when if we’re looking at transport road only, you could, police would have a shorter drive to that site, but the other three departments would, would spend two to nine minutes longer on the road.

So I think it’s important, as these reporters pointed out to consider how long, uh, or how many inmates are coming from each of these, these places.

[00:11:59] Chris: [00:12:00] Yeah, I, the only one that baffled me was the Maple Heights, because Maple Heights and Bedford Height, it’s, or Maple Heights and Garfield Heights are almost on top of each other.

But I, it must be just the way that the, the roads run with this all said to me, and, and Kaitlyn did a previous story that looked at a bunch of other conditions that they’re looking for for the jail. This says to me as Christopher Nain went out and got the best possible site. This fits. It works. It’s, it’s clean, it’s it’s green.

It’s close to most things. This is a smart move, and the county council num skulls are in a tiff with him because he embarrassed them last year when they wanted to put the site on top of benzene. And so they’re using personal pettiness to fight what is a very smart choice.

[00:12:46] Leila: Mm-hmm. Yeah. No, I, I, I, I think that’s, that’s exactly what these, what this bears out.

Um, and, uh, We’ll see how it plays out with county council. I, I feel like we are just at an impasse and [00:13:00] we, uh, we just keep hitting these walls in this conversation.

[00:13:03] Chris: And it’s childish. It’s the sunny Simon and Gallagher being childish because they were embarrassed. They were going forward on a bad idea, universally looked upon as a terrible idea and, and it, and thankfully it got stopped so that we could do a full look and, and they’re just not doing the people’s business.

They’re, they’re playing their. Personal petty nonsense jamming Chris Ronin. It’s interesting ‘cause Chris Ronin is known as the great collaborator, but I think he’s met, he’s met the brick wall. You can’t collaborate with. That’s right.

[00:13:35] Leila: It still is stunning to me that the transport site is even, even in the discussion anymore.

I mean, I thought that had been fully washed out by public hearings, and here it is, people still returning to that. Oh, why don’t we, uh, reconsider that as our, I just, I, I’m

[00:13:52] Chris: stunned. It’s pure stubbornness. It’s, it’s, they’re embarrassed. They were embarrassed last year repeatedly by their terrible decisions.

Look, [00:14:00] it gets back to the idea we gotta, we gotta do something to end the word councilman. Go back to the old government. Make them at large council people. This pettiness has got to stop. It’s getting in the way business you’re listening to today in Ohio. If we can’t stop school shootings, how much money can companies make trying to harden schools against them?

Reporter Jake Zuckerman looked at some of the efforts to profit from America’s awful trend. Lisa, who’s behind them? Yeah.

[00:14:28] Lisa: Jake talked to seven vendors who were at the Ohio School Safety Summit last week at the Columbus Convention Center, and they had all kinds of wears that they were pedaling and all of them launched their businesses within five years of the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in Connecticut.

In which 26 people were killed. Um, and in during that time, 14 school shootings have happened in Ohio since Columbine back in 1999. So one of the companies is from Michigan, the lockout company. They sell [00:15:00] bullet resistant ballistic shields and a tablet device that controls all the entry and exit points of a school.

And they also have a five pound plate. Any teacher or child could deploy to barricade the door that triggers other plates to deploy. Um, a TG Cook, the owner says it’s already in Ohio schools, including Mill Creek and West Unity District in northwest Ohio. They spent $111,000 on this lockout system, a 90,000 of that from grant money.

Safe Haven defensive. Phoenix, they’re selling bullet resistant window coverings at all price points. Some are, you know, bullet resistant. Uh, it’s like a safety kind of a laminate. And then he said that there’s, um, one that actually can stop small rounds, but others will keep a shooter out for 15 minutes or an hour.

Um, there’s one called the indoor gunshot Detection System that’s similar to Shot Spotter, which we have in Cleveland. They look like thermostats on the [00:16:00] wall, and what they do is they detect muzzle flashes and gunfire. The owner, Jason Moyer, says that it’s accurate. 99.9% of the time it’s monitored by a third party that has a.

Priority channel that that can notify police if they see muzzle flashes. That would cost about $5,000 for five sensors and software, and then of course, more money for extras. Levine Security Solutions. This is a group that provides training services to school bus drivers. The owner says that’s kind of an ignored, you know, Part of the this situation and Elite Preparedness L L C, that’s a state regulated armed school staff essential training group.

They also offer deescalation training and linkups with first responders, and that’s free to schools. Brian Hess says he’s getting his funding for this from the American Patriots Organization, nonprofit.

[00:16:52] Chris: It seems just so upside down. I, I, I would think that if another species came to this planet and saw what was happening, it’d be just [00:17:00] scratching their heads.

This would be like Matt Hoffman and company breeding gazillions of black widow spiders to live around schools, and then these companies coming in to protect. The schools from getting the kids bitten or stung by black widow spiders. It’s just, we’ve created this problem because we’ve made AR fifteens available to everybody.

They’re the, the gun of choice. And now we have to build schools that can take the AK 47 and there are people making a lot of money out It. Mind

[00:17:27] Lisa: boggling. Well, yes, but you know, where there’s a need that, you know, the mothers of invention, that’s what happens. You know? But I. They are soft targets. And a lot of these vendors that Jake Zuckerman talked to, he, you know, said the schools are soft targets.

A lot of them have a, you know, window walls, they’re easy to access. They don’t lock their doors all the time, so they are filling a need. It’s a, it’s a sad need, but it’s a need. It’s

[00:17:50] Laura: terrifying as a parent. I mean, so we just talked about, it’s almost August, kids go back to school, you know, and. Two or three weeks.

And this is a reality of kids that’s not [00:18:00] just tornado drills and fire drills anymore. They have active shooter drills. Mm-hmm. They, you, you can’t have windows in your classroom doors anymore. They have to be covered because you don’t want a shooter to be able to see if there’s kids in the classroom.

They learn how to throw textbooks at intruders. I mean, that is not something I want my 10 year old to have to think about, but it’s the reality and that’s. Every day you send your kid to school, you hope nothing bad happens to them.

[00:18:23] Lisa: Well, in one of these, the lockout system that we talked about where they deploy these plates to barricade the doors, aren’t they barricading the shooter in the building?

I mean, I thought, okay, you’d have to deploy those if you knew a shooter was outside. So, I don’t know, it just seems kind of weird.

[00:18:39] Chris: Again, I give credit to Jake. He goes to this Yes. This thing where Dee’s talking and he sees these guys and sees the value of that story. Jake is the

[00:18:48] Laura: king of finding weird stories Right.

And going really deep on them, and they’re fascinating.

[00:18:53] Chris: Yeah. This was, this was a winner. I mean, I, I could not put this story down. He did a great job you’re listening to [00:19:00] today in Ohio. Who is paying for all the ads, both for and against issue one and the August 8th special election and Laura are outside interest trying to affect our constitution.

[00:19:10] Laura: Outside interests are just driving this campaign on both sides. This is a lot of out-of-state people, a lot of dark money. So let’s start with the no vote. That’s the. One person, one vote campaign working to defeat the measure. They’ve raised 14 $8 million and spent $10.4 million mostly on advertising.

All but 2.3 million is coming from out of state, though a couple of in-state groups like the A C L U and the Ohio League of Women voters contributed $1.2 million in free services. So we don’t. Really know who’s funding all of these because there’s dark money. The official Yes. Campaign Save Our Constitution raised $4.8 million.

4 million of that came from conservative, Illinois billionaire, Richard Uline. They spent $1.6 million mostly on ads. A couple of other groups we know of that contributed is an Ohio nonprofit associated [00:20:00] with nursing home providers. They gave a hundred thousand dollars and save our jobs. L L C, they’re tied to the Chamber of Commerce.

They gave a hundred thousand dollars. And our friends, the Browns owners, Jimmy and Dee Haslum, of course, $50,000. If there’s

[00:20:13] Chris: a bad cause, you can count on them. Hey, to be part

[00:20:16] Laura: of it. Hey. I was like, I, I know we’ve talked about that in the past, but you look at this, you look at taking people’s power away. You look at the fans of the Cleveland Browns and.

Where they live and you think this is a good cause to support? Yeah. I, I was a little flummoxed.

[00:20:29] Chris: They always are on the wrong side of the issue. Remember they participated in that ad that was considered racist against Justin Bibb. They’ve been on the wrong side a long time. The, I, I keep going back to when Matt Huffman sat in what he thought was a secret meeting of a bunch of lobbyists saying, okay, this is on the ballot.

We’re gonna be calling you now. Mm-hmm. Expect the call from our people. We wanna, we want 5.6 million for this campaign. You know, it sounds like they’ll get that much money, but 4 million of it’s coming from a guy outside of [00:21:00] state. I sus I suspect that a lot of these lobbyists did not come through, that they don’t wanna be tagged to the most eent democratic thing ever to appear on the Ohio ballot.

And you’re starting to see Huffman realize that he, he screwed up here. He wrote an op-ed in the dispatch a couple of weeks ago. It was almost histrionic. Because you can, you get the sense, they all know this is going down and they’re finger pointing and blaming. There was a big diatribe against the, the liberal media, which I think is interesting because if you say it’s the liberal media that’s sinking it, then you are saying this is a partisan issue, which they aren’t saying.

They’re saying it’s about protecting the constitution also, when

[00:21:38] Laura: all else fails, blame the media. Yeah. Well, I, you know what, the other only person you can, you can blame that everyone hates as much is lawyers, right? It’s all the lawyer’s fault. It’s all the media’s

[00:21:46] Chris: fault. I’ll own that. I mean, I, if this goes down and the media is, is held up as a reason, we did our job.

We made sure you raise your hand

[00:21:54] Laura: and be like, here’s everything we wrote, which we actually compiled for people

already.

[00:21:58] Chris: Right? We informed people. They [00:22:00] made the choice. So you could see that they’re worried that all of a sudden their power isn’t as strong as they thought it was. You’re listening to today in Ohio.

Can Cuyahoga County ever move forward? Are more squabbles likely to get in the way of progress on what to do about renovating or building a courthouse? Who are the players in this latest conflict? Layla. So

[00:22:23] Leila: last week, I. County executive Chris Rena wanted a chance to respond to the criticism from Judge Brendan Sheehan and county prosecutor Mike O’Malley, that they have been left out of discussion so far about what to do with the county courthouse.

And he says that actually they have had a voice, the county prosecutor’s office, and the judges and clerks, they’ve already weighed in on the space and the programming needs for this new facility. Rne says, and. He, he said their wishlist weighed pretty heavily into the current request for proposals that’s on the table and that is hoping to solicit ideas for how to meet all of their needs with this [00:23:00] new, this new court.

And when it comes to reviewing any of those options and picking a path forward, whether that means renovating the existing building or building something new or repurposing an old building somewhere downtown, Renee says it will be decided in cooperation with those agencies. Interim chief of staff, Brendan Doyle, said Ronna is, is pledging complete cooperation and partnership with everyone who has a stake in this project.

Although he couldn’t really describe what that cooperation would look like. But importantly, the county has denied that it has sets its sites on moving the courthouse to the recently sold Sherwin-Williams headquarters. They say they’re looking at any and all options. Everything’s on the table.

Everyone’s voice should be heard. And they also have pointed out that drafts of this R F P have been shown on numerous occasions to the different people who are players here.

[00:23:49] Chris: There are sort all sorts of empty buildings downtown that may want to try and get the courthouse into them, so we won’t know what’s in there.

What’s at stake here is that before the charter [00:24:00] changed, the current former government, every county in Ohio, By law had a committee that decided jail locations, courthouse locations, and it was weighted to, to the criminal justice side. There. There were more people from the judges, the prosecutors, the sheriff court administrator, than there were from the government side.

When our charter changed, it changed the balance because the executive appoints some of those people and so the courts don’t have the say, and I think that’s what they’re upset about. The problem here though is in the history of Cuyahoga County, there is no more group. No more obstructionist group than the judges.

They have stood in the way of progress every chance they could. They don’t wanna be accountable. They do everything possible to avoid anybody looking into their business. So if they had control here, if they had veto power, it’s pretty clear they would say our way or the highway, and they’re upset because, Now has that power [00:25:00] ultimately, but until we see the proposals, I don’t know what, who’s gonna propose what for the courthouse.

I, I would think we should stop and, and wait and see. Ultimately, if Chris does not get. The judges, the prosecutor, and these others on board, he’s not gonna get the project done ‘cause the county council already hates him. So, so he doesn’t have all of the government outside of the county council saying, this is what we wanna do, the county council do whatever can to make Chris look bad.

Because they’re not, they’re not governing based on what’s right and what’s wrong,

[00:25:33] Leila: I guess. But I guess the question is then what? What does it look like to get people on board and to, uh, have true collaboration? Because like you said, the reputation of being obstructionist precedes this. So, but

[00:25:47] Lisa: like,

[00:25:47] Chris: you know, alright, but they don’t have money, right?

So they can’t really renovate. The courthouse themselves. So if they go and get developers to do what they did with the county administration building on East ninth Street where the developer [00:26:00] does all the work and then the county signs a lease, the judges could get a much nicer building than they have now.

That’s what Chris has gonna have to show them. He’s gonna have to go in and say, look. This is what you’ll get if we, if we go this path. Otherwise, we’re gonna have about $300 million to renovate the courthouse if they get the sales tax increase. And that’ll barely do it, you know? Mm-hmm. Because the county council squandered another 110 million last year on junk.

So that’s, that’s the sales pitch. But you can’t make the sales pitch until developers come forward with a plan, and then we need to see what it’s gonna cost every year.

[00:26:34] Leila: Right, right. So we’re, we’re just early. We’re just embarking upon this now, and I’m, I’m very eager to see what proposals come forth. Yeah.

[00:26:41] Chris: Everybody needs to be a little bit patient. Meanwhile, they gotta figure out the jail you’re listening to today in Ohio. Where are the trees going in? The latest effort by Cuyahoga County to increase the region’s tree canopy and cool things down. Lisa?

[00:26:56] Lisa: Yeah. Cuyahoga County. Um, it just let out [00:27:00] $950,000 for expanding the tree canopy.

This is the fourth installment from the Healthy Urban Tree Canopy Grant Program. Recipients are chosen on several factors. Uh, the absence of tree canopy climate vulnerability. The ability for trees to thrive in that area, community need and impact. And these 19 grants this year will add 2000 trees that will make 11,500 trees planted since 2019.

The biggest one is Walters Grove Park and Parmer. They’re getting 200 trees. The Cleveland Heights, Coventry. Peace Park is getting 2062 trees on a one acre tract of mostly native trees. Rocky River, 125 trees and residents front yards. That’s interesting. Participating homeowners have not yet been chosen for that.

Lakewood is putting in 400 street trees. And then there are also projects in Lyndhurst, south Euclid East Cleveland, Berea, Strongsville, Parma Heights. Cuyahoga Heights and various Cleveland [00:28:00] neighborhoods.

[00:28:01] Chris: This was the initiative of Armand Buddhist, this county executive, right? This was his idea, if I recall correctly.

I

[00:28:07] Lisa: wouldn’t know, Laura.

[00:28:09] Laura: I don’t know. I think so. I think it started under him. Yeah. I mean, we’ve been talking about this for a couple of years now, how the tree canopy is just really diminished and even with efforts, it’s not really getting a ton better, so it, I’m. I mean, I love trees. I think it’s amazing what they do.

I mean, they combat climate change. They help with erosion. They are actually increase people’s quality of life. So I, I think it’s a, it’s money well spent. So 50,

[00:28:34] Chris: a hundred years from now, people could be remembering Armand, Buddhist for the trees and none of the ugly stuff that we talked about during this time in office.

It’s

[00:28:41] Laura: funny, I asked our, our city, Arbiter, arborist. Arborist. Thank you for, um, to see if they could put street trees on our street ‘cause we don’t have any. And they said the side, uh, the tree lawn was too narrow, so I planted two myself. So we’ll see what happens. Just like little dogwoods [00:29:00] that wouldn’t hopefully disrupt the sidewalk later, but it just makes everything look better.

You gotta

[00:29:04] Chris: talk to Cleveland Heights. They stuck trees at the, up at the top of the hill project than the narrowest tree line I’ve ever seen. Mm-hmm. You’re listening to today in Ohio. We gotta do one more. Today is the final workday for the newsroom’s longest serving employee videographer, Dave Anderson, who started as a newspaper photographer us in 1979.

Reporter Julie Anderson grabbed him before he heads out the door. Laura, what are some of the highlights of Dave’s long career? This

[00:29:33] Laura: is such a long career. 44 years. Hats off to him and he’s such like a. Down to earth guy that you’d never know. All the amazing things he did. I mean, when we had a goodbye lunch in the newsroom last week, he mentioned, I, I don’t remember what country he was in.

Nepal. Nepal, okay. I was, I was like, really for the plane dealer. So he started in 1979 as a summer intern. He was given a Nikon camera without a motor drive, two lenses. No camera [00:30:00] bags. So he basically slipped a lens in his pocket and was off to Edgewater Park to try to capture a weather photo for that day.

Uh, he has photographed presidents, Jesse Jackson, Michael Jackson, homeless lethal house fires, Muhammad Ali. He helped Cleveland fans bear witness to the fumble when he captured bronze player Ernest Byner lying Deject Lee on the ground During that a f c championship, uh, he covered the drive. He’s seen photojournalism evolve from dark rooms when.

Every photographer at the plane dealer used to have their own dark room. I did not know that until reading Julie’s story. Obviously, we’re now in the digital age and he’s been a videographer for years. He’s the first one to raise his hand and say, sure, I’ll do that. He wants to try new things. He’s always up for anything.

He’s incredibly hardworking and has this anything. Uh, sports editor Dave Campbell said he’s the most adaptable journalist he’s ever worked with and has this unquestionable, unquestionable journalistic passion for once. What’s next? And if you haven’t seen Julie’s story online, there’s all sorts of great photos, [00:31:00] including one of of Ronald Reagan, like his quizzical expression at a cafeteria.

He probably never been to a cafeteria before.

[00:31:08] Chris: Yeah. He’s the heart and soul of Cleveland journalism and he’s served it well. We wish him a great retirement. When I first came to Cleveland, I would be on assignment and he’d be shooting it. So it goes back a long ways. That’s it for Monday. Thanks, Lisa.

Thanks Layla. Thanks Laura. Thanks to everybody who listens to today in Ohio. We will be back on Tuesday.