CLEVELAND, Ohio — Gov. Mike DeWine intends to vote for the constitutional amendment that would make it harder for Ohio voters to change the constitution, saying he’s concerned that “outside forces” could “spend a ton of money” to try to change the constitution.

We’re talking about hypocrisy on Today in Ohio, since millions of dollars in outside money is funding the push for minority rule.

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:

Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine is the latest leading state Republican to put on this hypocrite hat, with his convoluted reasoning for supporting the Legislature’s effort to torpedo democracy in the state. What is his reasoning, and why does that make him a hypocrite?

We now have two cases before the Ohio Supreme Court over the Ohio Legislature’s efforts to persuade voters to give away their power to amend the constitution. What’s the latest one?

This is a surprise. When was the last time that seat belt use in Ohio was as low as it is now?

How does this happen. You use the pandemic to scam $7 million out of the government, get caught, agree to a penalty and then you skate by his half of it. What’s the story here?

More bad news for the East Cleveland police department. Why did a commander there abruptly resign Tuesday?

We’ve said more than a few times on this podcast that Cuyahoga County should elevate the pay for jail guards to get more professional applicants. Apparently, some county leaders agree. What is the news?

How much has demand for summer camp – and the prices of summer camp – gone up in recent years? How hard is it to find openings?

Should this be on the National Register of Historic Places? What is to become of the very first Super K department store in the nation, which happens to be right here in Northeast Ohio?

Cuyahoga County has wiped out a bunch of its debt. Does that mean it has room to borrow to build a jail? What debt did it recently pay off?

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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: Well, we’re glad the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inducted her while she was still alive. More in the passing of one of the greatest talents ever. Tina Turner yesterday, but she was inducted in the most recent ceremony. It’s today in Ohio, the news podcast. Discussion from cleveland.com and the plane dealer.

I’m Chris Quinn here with Lisa Garvin, Laura Johnston, Lela Tasi, and we’re starting as we often have lately with issue one. Ohio Governor Mike DeWine is the latest, the leading state Republican to put on his hypocrite hat with his convoluted reasoning for supporting the legislature’s effort to torpedo democracy in the state.

Laura, what is his reasoning and why does that make him a first? Class hypocrite. Well,

[00:00:45] Laura: he’s using the same double speak as we’ve heard from other people so far. So Governor Mike DeWine said Wednesday he plans to vote for state issue issue one. Obviously, this is the proposed constitutional amendment that’s going on the August ballot that would make it harder for Ohio voters [00:01:00] to put any constitutional amendments on the ballot and pass them.

And this starts with the planned abortion Rights Amendment in November. We all know that that Mike DeWine is. Staunchly anti-abortion. So here’s his quote. The concern is people can come in outside forces, outside the state of Ohio and spend a ton of money trying to impact the constitution. Well, we know that the outside money is the one that’s pushing this, right?

That we’re getting billions of dollars from out of state, from conservative causes, folks like the Ohio right to life and the anti-gun leg, or sorry, the anti-gun. Like reform led, um, a lobby was the one circulating signatures and pushing and whipping legislators to vote for this.

[00:01:44] Chris: Right. The, the whole reason this is on the ballot is because outside money put it there and Mike DeWine is saying, I wanna stop outside money from influencing the Constitution.

That’s exactly what this is. Absolutely. That makes him a hypocrite. He’s also a hypocrite because he signed the bill outlawing [00:02:00] August elections in Ohio. This is an August election on principle. He shouldn’t be p pushing what’s going on here. The other thing is, let’s face it, Mike DeWine is the beneficiary of a lot of outside money.

Mm-hmm. There’s a lot of dark money that influences Ohio. It’s complete. Huey what he’s saying. He’s just following what’s going on in Ohio. Look, the last vestige of democracy in the state is the ability to change the constitution, which is not easy. We’ve had the same system for a hundred years. It’s not easy.

But with gerrymandering, we have created a tyranny of the minority in Columbus with the Supreme Court now being filled with partisans who put party over. The people, as we saw in the rulings, some of the dissenters made in the gerrymandering case. This is it. This is the last thing Ohioans have in their quiver to stop out of control tyranny in the state.

And here’s Mike [00:03:00] DeWine leading the charge. It’s a shameful statement. By Mike DeWine, and I don’t know what happened to the guy that we thought was so wonderful in 2020 when we entered the pandemic.

[00:03:11] Laura: I completely agree. It’s like he just kowtows to whatever the legislature wants. And the rest of his quote, he’s saying that the legislative process is frankly a better process.

And it’s like, well, good, because yeah, that’s who. Who controls that? The gerrymandered legislature. It’s not in the power of the people. That’s in the people, that’s the people they elect. Who, by the way, seem to be a lot more swayed by big money and campaign donations than the people who actually vote for them.

So, and then he brings in the federal constitution, which started a conversation in our newsroom about the differences because just. I feel like this might be a bubbling argument that’s coming. Well, the, the federal Constitution is harder to change. We should, we should emulate that. But the US Constitution has 27 amendments.

It, it is a lot different than the Ohio Constitution, which has 172, and obviously [00:04:00] Ohio’s is newer than the federal Constitution. So it’s a different kind of document that has been used in a different way to put things that people want in their state into the law.

[00:04:11] Chris: Right. The, the, it’s not, look, we don’t do this often because it is very difficult to change the constitution.

Uh, you have to get signatures, a lot of signatures in half of the, the state’s, counties, and then you’ve gotta get the majority vote. It’s not easy. Doesn’t happen often. The system has worked. We haven’t had it corrupted. This is to stop. Mm-hmm. Look, gerrymandering has. Put us in a position with super majorities in the legislature that don’t match the voting public.

The, the, the state has leaned red, but it’s not super majority because of their sinister practices. They have created super majorities where they lured over the state. They know the one way. That regular people can fight back is through this. And so they’re sneaking this thing onto the August election hoping nobody shows [00:05:00] up and trying to take away the power of the people.

When we were talking about this yesterday, a, a, a very interesting element rose up. Uh, yeah. I was surrounded by you and Layla and some other women. I. And the women started talking about how this is an assault on women and we’re, that we’re heading to the Handmaid’s Tale, which was fascinating. It was very fervent.

People were,

[00:05:19] Laura: it’s like, what’s, what’s the end goal? Right? We just keep watching people’s rights be stripped away. And if you look at things in the aggregate of who is running our state, it does seem like, and this goes back to the childcare project that I’m working on too, right? Like it, it feels like.

We’re gonna push against anything that is progressive because we wanna keep white men in power. And, and I’m not saying that that’s what they’re saying, but when you’re stripping away people’s rights and you’re pushing against things like the abortion, right? And by the way, that’s how this is gonna get marketed to people.

They’re, they’re gonna be like, if you don’t want abortion to be, Legal in Ohio, you need to vote for this amendment on the [00:06:00] August election. Don’t even think about what’s happening down the road, that you will give away all your power. But they’re, they wanna just focus on the shiny thing in front of them, the thing that’s up in November, rather than looking at all of the big issue.

And I can’t stress enough. No, I, I

[00:06:15] Chris: see. I disagree. I think they’re trying to stop all the issues. Well, they

[00:06:18] Laura: are, but the way that they’re selling it to voters is gonna focus on

[00:06:22] Chris: abortion. Th this is going to be the final cap that’s, that puts them. Matt Huffman, people like Mike DeWine, John Houston, Frank LaRose, they wanna be dictators in this state.

The only answer that people have is to change the Constitution Y Some will say, well, they can change the laws, but any law that we changed by vote, they could turn around the next day and undo. They just

[00:06:45] Laura: did it with the

[00:06:46] Chris: August election, right? It’s not. It’s not permanent. So I don’t know. I, I, I, I’ve said this before, I keep getting notes from prominent people in this town mm-hmm.

Who are in a panic saying that this is our [00:07:00] responsibility to get the word out and, and, and kind of criticizing this because they don’t think we’re doing enough. I don’t know what more we can do. We’re doing stories almost every day. We got more in the lineup, but that panic people are feeling, I think it’s because they realize the future of this state hangs in the balance in August.

Well, if this happens, the future of this state is dreary. Indeed. And it’s

[00:07:24] Laura: what Layla said the other day, like, go talk to someone. Like I know that it’s not. Comfortable to talk about politics, but you know, it’s gonna be Memorial Day weekend, beautiful weekend coming up, long weekend. Everybody’s gonna see their family and friends.

Just mention this to people. Make sure it’s on their radar as we start the summer, because I think people don’t want to think about. Their power than their rights being taken away. But we need to make sure that everybody knows what’s at stake in August and make a plan

[00:07:51] Leila: to vote

[00:07:51] Chris: too. Yeah. You’re listening to today in Ohio, Lisa, we now have two cases before the Ohio Supreme Court over the Ohio [00:08:00] legislature’s effort to persuade voters to give away their power to amend the constitution.

What’s the latest one? Yeah,

[00:08:05] Lisa: this is a second lawsuit by the group called One Person, one Vote, and they filed it with the Supreme Court earlier this week over the ballot language. Uh, this joins their first suit that was seeking to block the August election on this matter. They accuse the Ohio ballot board of intentionally misleading the public with language that’s rife with material omissions and misleading.

Statements and they say it only describes the effects of the 60% threshold and not how it changes from the current law. Voters might assume that they’re voting in favor of a new right to change the constitution, but they’ve had that right since 1912. So they feel the language is misleading, thinking this is a new thing.

Also, they took issue with the 88 county signature requirement. They say that the ballot language doesn’t state that. That’s twice what the. Current, you know, law, it says for 44 counties. And they also took issue with a [00:09:00] lot of people did over the word elevate in the title of state issue one. They say it has a positive connotation, um, whereas they are legally required to have neutral language on the ballot.

The suit actually cited a 2012 Ohio Supreme Court case where the court voted six to one against approved ballot language in a suit filed by a redistricting reform group. So there is legal precedent

[00:09:24] Chris: here. I was very pleased to see we had an editorial that just slams this, slams Frank LaRose cuz he’s the leader of this terrible movement for playing games.

With this language there is clear precedent. You cannot have language like this. And even with our politicized Supreme Court, you gotta think they’re gonna fix it. But that editorial was one of the top red pieces on our site. All day yesterday. So that tells me that some of the work we’re doing is reaching quite a few eyeballs.

Uh, and hopefully people will see this. I, I don’t know that the Supreme [00:10:00] Court will follow it because Sharon Kennedy and Pat Dew Wine showed in gerrymandering, they don’t care about the rule of law. It’s all about their political party being ahead. So I have no faith that they’ll do the right thing in either of these cases.

[00:10:12] Lisa: I’d be shocked if they do. I mean, if they follow the law and follow precedent, you’d think this would be a slam dunk, but this is

[00:10:18] Chris: Ohio. Well, and they should also invalidate it because it’s an August election, and as of right now, those are illegal in Ohio, according to Mike Dew Wine’s signature on the legislature’s bill.

But Pat DeWine won’t see it that way. He doesn’t even recuse himself from his dad’s cases. You’re listening to today in Ohio. This is a surprise. When was the last time that seatbelt use in Ohio was as low as it is now? Leila?

[00:10:42] Leila: I was kind of shocked by this story, frankly, because our state has gone backward on a lot of things, but there’s no reason for seatbelt used to be among them, right?

I mean, who doesn’t automatically. Buckle up when they get in a car. But according to an annual observational study conducted by the Ohio Department of [00:11:00] Public Safety in the University of Akron, the statewide seatbelt compliance rate fell from about 84% in 2021 to less than 81% last year. To put this in perspective, national seatbelt use is at 92%.

So we are really lagging the national trend. It’s, it’s the lowest compliance rate in Ohio since 2005. And sadly in Kaa County, the compliance rate was 20 points lower than anywhere else in the state. And the stats are really clear on the consequences of not wearing your seatbelt. In 2022, there were 527 people killed in Ohio, traffic crashes.

Where seatbelt was available but not used, and it was the third consecutive year that Ohio’s Unbelted fatality rate was above 60%.

[00:11:48] Chris: Well, if you’re not wearing a seatbelt, you have a much higher chance of being ejected, which means you’re pretty much gonna die. Sure. What I’m surprised about this for my generation, you really had to change hearts and minds cuz I grew up mm-hmm.

People [00:12:00] never wore seat belts. I mean, you didn’t even have shoulder belts when I was a kid. Mm-hmm. So, you know, in the 1980s you really had a campaign to get people to understand it and then laws were passed, but. Your generation, Layla and Lara, you grew up with this being automatic and we’ve had child car seats now forever.

It just seems like this should be automatic. I don’t understand why it would drop, and nobody really seems to have even a speculative reason why.

[00:12:27] Leila: Yeah, I don’t understand. I mean, Jake Zuckerman reminds us in the story that Governor DeWine attempted to. Include language in the budget bill that makes failing to wear a seatbelt, a primary offense that cops can pull drivers over for, and that there’s evidence that shows that seatbelt compliance increases by an average of, I think it was five percentage points in states that make failure to buckle up a primary offense.

But the Ohio House removed that language from the budget bill kind of inexplicably and. I was wondering why that happened. Is there some kind of culture war around seat belts that I [00:13:00] don’t know about?

[00:13:01] Chris: Actually, I, I think they did the right thing because if we know anything, it’s the police use those kind of things to target minorities.

Well, that’s

[00:13:09] Leila: what I, that’s what I thought about. I mean, how Jake, Jake points out that black drivers are less likely than other demographics to buckle up. And so I thought, you know, maybe this is, um, you know, to prevent racial profiling. On the roads and, and to keep police from having a justification for pulling over black drivers.

But I mean, something tells me that concern is not what prompted the g o p lawmakers to strip out the language. So I was trying to figure out what other motivation they might

[00:13:35] Chris: have. But look, we, we changed the entire approach to seat belts in this country in the eighties and nineties with publicity.

There was a lot of discussion, there were a lot of evidence shown, and maybe what. What Ohio needs to do is be more effective in messaging. Why this is so important for you and your passengers. Well, I don’t know that you need the stick here because it will be abused. They will pull over more, right. Black drivers.

[00:14:00] That’s true. They, you know, it’s, it’s, it’s broken taillights and tinted windows. You shouldn’t be able to pull somebody over for that. They should just have an automated ticket go, because then you avoid the whole volatile situation that arrives when police pull somebody over. Giving the police another cheesy reason to pull people over, I don’t think is the answer.

So then, I mean,

[00:14:19] Laura: but whatever we do with a campaign, obviously it needs to start in Cuyohoga County where the rate, it’s 59%. It’s, it’s barely over half. It’s unimaginable to me how it’s that low. But is,

[00:14:28] Leila: I mean, we have like click or ticket. I mean, what else are you gonna do? There’s billboards and banners and

[00:14:34] Lisa: stuff.

You could go the way of the, the high school prom videos that they used to show. Oh, true. I’ll terrify you. Oh yeah. We’re showing people flying through windshields because they didn’t, yeah.

[00:14:43] Chris: I mean, that’s what worked for me. Yeah. When I, when I was, when I was at the, you know, coming outta my teenage years and an early driver, I read a series about the injuries people get from not wearing seat belts, and I’ve worn one ever since.

It scared me. The commercials

[00:14:57] Leila: co with those

[00:14:58] Laura: Crash Dummies. Dummies. You [00:15:00] remember those? Yeah. Yeah.

[00:15:00] Chris: The Crash Test Dummies. Right. Good, good. Yeah, so bring that back instead of using the stick. You’re listening to today in Ohio. How does this happen? You used the pandemic to scam 7 million out of the government, get caught, agree to a penalty, and then you skate by with half of that penalty.

Laura, what’s going on here?

[00:15:20] Laura: Well, I’m not exactly sure what’s going on in the judge’s mind, but yeah, created more than 70 fake business, swindled the government over 7 million in. Covid Relief money and all those businesses with the same Euclid address. So this is Aiden Cala Turk. He’s sentenced to two years and nine months in prison.

Uh, he got about 2.1 of million of those loans and his brothers, who by the way, have not been charge, well, they’re charged, but they’re not in custody yet. Um, he worked with them to do all of this, and his lawyer basically said it was a complicated relationship with his brothers and he was under their, their thumb basically.

[00:15:59] Chris: All right. [00:16:00] And, and when he got, when he made his deal, he was supposed to go away for a certain amount of time. Yeah.

[00:16:07] Laura: I don’t, I don’t know. The defense attorney said he was roped in this scheme and the two brothers were involved. I don’t exactly know what the judge. Didn’t go with what the, the recommended sentence was.

Yeah.

[00:16:21] Chris: It seems like, it seems like something very weird happened here. Who was the judge that decided to only give half the penalty? US

[00:16:27] Laura: District Judge Pamela Barker. So, I don’t know. I mean, and, and if you read these, these companies they came up with, it’s, uh, interesting. There was like a peanut one, I mean, I don’t know, agriculture in the middle of Euclid, almonds and peanuts.

L l c Ohio organic carrots. L l c. Yeah. It was this,

[00:16:47] Chris: it’s a gigantic scam. Yeah. Mean these guys scammed the government outta $7 million. They agreed this was an agreement to do seven years and. Prosecutors are besides themselves. It’s like, why? Why are we making these deals [00:17:00] if the judge is just gonna unilaterally without explanation?

Go easy on people you’re listening to today in Ohio. All right, Lisa. More bad news for East Cleveland’s Police Department. Why did a commander there abruptly resign Tuesday? Well, 46

[00:17:15] Lisa: year old, uh, Larry McDonald were resigned Tuesday because he faced being fired in connection with a March 12th car chase and, and accident.

He was also indicted by a grand jury for tampering with evidence, telecommunications, fraud, and misdemeanor dereliction of duty, and leaving an accident scene in relation to this incident. Also, indicted was East Cleveland Police Sergeant, uh, Anthony Holmes. He was charged with obstructing justice, telecommunications, fraud, and other misdemeanors.

He apparently did not tell, uh, Cleveland Police Department investigators what he knew about this, this crash. So on March 12th, McDonald chased a driver who ended up crashing into a bus stop shelter. East Cleveland Police, uh, chief, uh, Brian Gerhard [00:18:00] says they’ll release more info and. Some body cam footage.

Uh, you know, at a later date there they said that they’d conducted an internal review and they found that several rules were broken around this incident. McDonald, who is also known as pacman on the streets, has been a cop since 2007. He did move to Cleveland PD in 2017, but he came back to East Cleveland later that year.

He’s been in trouble before. He was no build in the shooting of 19 year old Vincent Belmonte in January of 2021. Uh, Belmonte ran from the car that, uh, McDonald Chase, and he turned off his body camera just before the shooting occurred, and there were other incidents on his record as well.

[00:18:43] Chris: Yeah, he’s clearly one of the, the bad eggs that we’ve seen at these Cleveland Police Department.

We did that whole series a year and a half ago about the ridiculous way they chased everybody. Uh, I, we had thought that with the new chief, they had clamped down on that and stopped it [00:19:00] because it was endangering so many lives. Clearly, this guy still doing chases, still endangering people given this crash, but in this case, trying to cover it up.

I guess it’s a good sign that they’re, they’re weeding him out. You’re listening to Today in Ohio. We’ve said more than a few times on this podcast, the Kayak County should elevate the pay for jail guards to get more professional applicants. The jail has been in shambles. Apparently, some of the leaders have the same line of thought.

Layla, what’s the news here? Well, the

[00:19:31] Leila: county currently has 605 corrections officers, but they have 120 vacancies, and they’ve been struggling to attract candidates to fill those jobs for a long time. And also to make sure that officers show up for work because when officers call off, it creates a burden for the officers who are mandated to work overtime that contributes to burnout.

So, This latest collective bargaining agreement with the union representing the corrections officers is geared towards solving those problems for the sixth time in five [00:20:00] years. Corrections officers are gonna get a raise. New officers are going to start off earning $25 an hour this year and earn up to 26 50 per hour by 2025.

That is about a dollar raise over their current pay for starting officers. And an increase of more than $10 over what they were making just five years ago. Officers with more than three years of experience will earn up to $32 and 36 cents per hour over the same period. Uh, pay raises are, are retroactive to January 1st.

And um, this was also interesting that officers will receive a one time $500 bonus and an additional $300 for each month. That they maintain perfect attendance. So no tardies, no absences, no call-offs. It’s kind of sad that they have to incentivize showing up for work, but I really think that’s what they have to do at this point.

[00:20:52] Chris: Except people with covid will come to work. I mean, there is a danger that for the money people,

[00:20:57] Leila: man, I can’t believe Covid is

[00:20:59] Chris: sick [00:21:00] consciousness. The, the. This is a good, you’re right, this is a good sign. Clearly they’ve been attracting some poor candidates because we’ve written no end of stories about people taking drugs in or beating people up there, and it hasn’t felt like you have the most professional staff or, or largely a professional staff, and, and they need better candidates, and better candidates want the money.

And so the fact that they’ve raised the the level of pay is good. They probably need to raise it some more.

[00:21:32] Lisa: I would think that the level of pay or the low level of pay has a lot to do with why guards sneak contraband into the prison because they make money off of that. Ooh,

[00:21:41] Chris: yeah. True. I know. It’s they’re supplementing their pay through their job, so it’s a good step.

Good to see. Hope it works. You’re listening to today in Ohio, how much is demand for summer camp and the prices of summer camp? Gone up in recent years and how hard is it to find an opening? Laura, you just wrote [00:22:00] a story about

[00:22:00] Laura: this. I did. It feels panic inducing for a lot of parents to figure out care for their kid in the summer once they get to school age.

And you don’t have a regular childcare center anymore. You’ve gotta find a system. Either E, either you hire a babysitter, which can be very expensive. The average pay is $20 an hour for one kid in Cleveland right now. So find someone to do that or send them to a camp where they get to hang out with other kids and and have fun.

Of course, you gotta figure out the transportation of that camp and you gotta pay for that camp and those can run. Easily in the high, you know, high end of the hundreds of dollars, uh, just for a week. And that’s day camp. And, and you have to be able to get that slot. They will open up and they will fill up in, you know, 10 or 15 minutes.

It’s that crazy hard to get a spot. So you hear a lot of parents, uh, you gotta do this in like January and February too. So it is tough to find and it’s expensive. The average camp this year, overnight is $150 a day. Day camp is about [00:23:00] half of that, and camp prices have jumped about 35% since before the pandemic because the supply decreased.

A lot of camps closed their doors and the demand is really up.

[00:23:12] Chris: Did you get closed out of any that you were trying to find?

[00:23:14] Laura: No, but uh, thankfully my kids are just at that age. They’re 10 and 12 now, where they don’t have to be in a camp every second of the summer. They can be home. You know, both my husband and I have some flexibility from work, so.

They can make plans with friends. They have swim team. They have some local stuff to do, but, uh, I, I, you know, I’m the person that sets the, you know, puts it on my calendar sets. The alarm is on there at the crack of dawn to sign up. But I have friends that were, you know, 10 or 15 minutes behind me and didn’t get in.

[00:23:45] Chris: Wow. Mm-hmm. Okay. You’re listening to today in Ohio. Should this be on the National Register of Historic Places? I ask Facetiously, what is to become of the very first Super K department store in the nation, which happens to be right [00:24:00] here in northeast Ohio. Lisa, it’s going down.

[00:24:03] Lisa: It is the very first. Super Kmart in the nation at 1105 North Court Street in Medina.

Uh, what opened in 1991 to much fanfare it closed in 2012, has been sitting empty since then. So, Michigan-based Meyer chain has submitted plans for 160,000 square foot store at the site to the Medina. Planning commission, that building would be slightly larger than the, than the old Kmart building. And they’ll also redo the front parking lot there.

The Kmart building is owned by Benden Development. It’s flanked by two retail strips owned by someone else. So it’s kind of, you know, shoehorned in there. This would be the eighth Meyer store in Greater Cleveland joining, uh, locations in Seven Hills, mentor sto, Lorraine Brunswick, Avon, and Brimfield Township.

Um, they’re also building a smaller. 40,000 square foot store under construction at East hundred fifth and Cedar Meyer. That is, um, the [00:25:00] community Development Director for Edina. Andrew Dutton says they’ve been in talks with Meyer for about six months. They will see the plans at their June 8th meeting, but he says this is fantastic news.

Um, obviously big box stores are hard to re. Purpose. Um, but, uh, Kmart, apparently there are several old Kmarts that have been repurposed. Cleveland Clinic did one in Middleburg Heights and, uh, in West Park they’re redoing an old Kmart to make it into an Aldi and a Starbucks store. So some old Kmarts are finding new life, but big box stores are a really hard sell.

[00:25:33] Chris: Yeah, it is. We still have the one in Cleveland Heights, the old Walmart that just sits like a, can

[00:25:39] Laura: I, can I just tell you my Super K story, like growing up near Monts, it was this, it, it replaced a drive-in movie theater in the early nineties and it was like where we hung out in high school cuz it was open 24 hours and like we would just go there and wander.

Also, it had a, a video store. Obviously, and that’s, you know, what we did in high school, movie you hung out

[00:25:59] Leila: in super [00:26:00] Kmart as a

[00:26:00] Laura: teenager. We literally hung out in super Kmart. That’s what people would do, where they would like wander. The aisles of Super K Bath was not that exciting. And now it’s like a, a JCPenney and a little vin, um, furniture store.

So they did find a, a homes for that when it closed, God, probably close to 20 years ago.

[00:26:21] Chris: So most people when they see a blue light, they get nervous cuz it’s a cop. But for you, brings back, it’s a reminder

[00:26:27] Laura: of childhood high

[00:26:30] Chris: school. The blue light makes your heart grow. Pitter. You’re listening to today in Ohio.

Caca County is just wiped out a bunch of its debt. How much does it have left and does it mean that it has room to borrow a build, uh, borrow to build a jail? Layla, well, I’ll, you know,

[00:26:49] Leila: this story made me feel better about the status of my own home equity line of credit. The upshot here is that the county is.

Paying off some debt, so yay. [00:27:00] But it’s gonna quickly be replaced by more debt. Wo So the county recently paid off the original debt on the Rocket Mortgage Field House and Progressive Field County Council on Tuesday approved the last 2.6 million in general fund dollars. To pay off those bonds that date back to the 1990s and that settles the original 120 million plus interest that the county took on back in 92 94 to build those facilities.

But the county still has 1.3 billion in debts on the books the county still owes on on other things like, you know, those sports facilities. That includes the additional 140 million it took on in 2017 to renovate the rocket mortgage Arena. Half of that Cleveland Cavaliers are paying and the 190.9 million in new debt issued last year as part of a deal to extend the guardian’s lease of Progressive field and make a bunch of renovations there.

And the county has to build that jail. They have to, and it’s not gonna be cheap. It could be 650 million or 750 million. So [00:28:00] council recently discussed how the county might cope with that. Do they try to operate under their usual threshold and use more of their reserves for that project? To finance less of it.

Um, you know, it’s, it’s unclear and there’s still more debt on the horizon. Come 2027, the county will no longer have to commit 27 million a year toward the debt they incurred to build that boondoggle Med Mart. But the county is about to take on $31 million more in debt to finance renovations to that facility.

It’s turning into the. Grand Convention Center that they want and that will be on the books until 2042. And we have more renovations looming at the stadiums. The guardians and calves have been like kids in a candy shop with, with the syntax dollars, so

[00:28:44] Chris: well. I mean, the other thing is they still owe a million dollars on the Shaker Square project from, that’s right.

From 2000. That was a boondoggle. Now we’ve spent a bunch more public money on a stupid idea. They don’t even know what they’re gonna do with it, and Brandon Kowski wanted it. It, [00:29:00] it’s just more evidence of how foolish we are when it comes to Shaker Square. Look, the, the, you mentioned the sports stadiums, and there’s a key thing here.

They, they, we’ve been debating the, the sports stadium funding in this. Neck of the woods for decades, right? But never before have the teams had such, you know, eye on the sky level of demands. While we are this strapped, the county has to build that jail. It’s probably gonna cost three quarters of a billion dollars.

They have to do something with the courthouse. Who knows what that’s gonna cost. If you build a new one or renovate, it’s gonna be probably at least a half a billion dollars and they don’t have the ability to borrow that much. Meanwhile, Paul Dolan, Dan Gilbert and Dee and Jimmy Hasam, who are all loaded, by the way, are all have their hands out saying, we want ours.

This is going to be, I think, a different kind of debate about sports stadiums. I’m not sure any of ‘em are gonna get what they want.

[00:29:58] Leila: Right. And I, I, the, I [00:30:00] don’t think that the public has the tolerance that they might have had in the past for this kind of lavish spending on stadiums.

[00:30:08] Chris: Right. I be, because we have needs that we have to, right.

We don’t have a choice about why should we be taking hundreds and hundreds of millions and slapping it into the hands of these folks who just profit from it. I, I really do get the feeling that debate is going to be very different this time. A and I, I wonder if it becomes a debate about can Cleveland continue to support three sports teams?

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. I don’t know. Uh, Caitlin’s story is terrific. It lays out in, in clear detail what the status of the debt is. Everybody who is paying attention to policy in Ke County should read it. It published this morning. Really a terrific look. That’s it for Thursday on today in Ohio. Thanks, Lisa. Thanks Laura.

Thanks Layla. Thank you for listening. We’ll be back Friday to wa wrap up a week of news. We will not have a podcast on Monday. We’re taking [00:31:00] the holiday. We hope you enjoy it too.