The 2024 NFL Draft is finally here, with the first round of the annual selection show kicking off Thursday night in Detroit.

The Ohio State Buckeyes will have a number of players that could have their names called during the show from Thursday through Saturday, with as many as six expected to be taken throughout the seven-round process.

There have been at least six Buckeyes players taken in each of the past eight drafts and at least five selected in the past 10. But both of those streaks could come to an end this year. There are maybe three to four players who appear to be locks to be taken.

The Buckeyes will most likely have a player taken in the first round for a record eighth year in a row. If wideout Marvin Harrison Jr. is selected in the first round as he most surely will, he will be the fourth Ohio State receiver taken in the first round in the past four years, joining Chris Olave, Garrett Wilson, and Jaxon Smith-Njigba.

WHAT: 2024 NFL Draft

WHERE: Campus Martius Park and Hart Plaza, Detroit, Michigan

WHEN: Round 1: Thursday, April 25 at 7 p.m. CT | Round 2-3: Friday, April 26 at 6 p.m. CT | Round 4-7: Saturday, April 27 at 11 a.m. CT

TV/STREAMING: ABC | ESPN | ESPN Deportes | NFL Network

RADIO: Westwood One Radio | ESPN Radio | Sirius XM NFL Radio

The National Weather Service in Wilmington has issued a freeze warning or frost advisory for multiple Ohio counties for Thursday morning from midnight until 9 a.m.

Franklin, Fairfield, Madison and Pickaway counties in central Ohio are under a frost advisory Thursday morning, with temperatures expected to drop to as low as 33 degrees, which will result in the formation of frost.

A more serious freeze warning has been issued by the NWS for Delaware, Licking and Union counties in central Ohio, as well as Auglaize, Champaign, Hardin, Logan and Shelby counties. The warning means the NWS expects sub-freezing temperatures Thursday morning as low as 31 degrees.

The NWS advises residents of counties under either a freeze warning or frost advisory to take steps to protect their plants from the cold, including bringing potted plants inside and covering those outside. The buildup of frost could kill sensitive outdoor plants and vegetation if left uncovered.

smeighan@dispatch.com

@ShahidMeighan

CLEVELAND, Ohio — Ohio House leaders from both sides of the aisle gave assurances Tuesday that they’re working to ensure that President Joe Biden makes it on the state’s November ballot despite running afoul of an obscure state deadline.

We’re talking about how exactly that could happen on Today in Ohio.

Listen online here.

Editor Chris Quinn hosts our daily half-hour news podcast, with editorial board member Lisa Garvin, city hall reporter Courtney Astolfi 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.

You can now join the conversation. Call 833-648-6329 (833-OHTODAY) if you’d like to leave a message we can play on the podcast.

Here’s what else we’re asking about today:The Republican roadblocks to ensuring Joe Biden is on the Ohio ballot in November might be gone, but nothing is in concrete yet. Did we hear something about next steps Tuesday?

Mike DeWine has said a few times that distracted driving is down since it became a primary offense, meaning police can pull people over for it. What are the dramatic stats released Tuesday that support DeWine’s claim?

Senate President Matt Huffman took aim at Ohio House incumbents who support House Speaker Jason Stephens in the primary election. Huffman wants to be speaker next year, and Stephens is in his way. Tuesday, we learned what the mechanism was for Huffman’s effort. Who did the dirty work?

A whole lot of our readers are not buying it, but Mike DeWine responded Tuesday to the news that FirstEnergy secretly gave millions to a dark money supporting DeWine’s original run for governor. What did he say?

Cleveland-Cliffs lost its bid to buy U.S. Steel to a Japanese company that was willing to pay a lot more. So why do Cleveland Cliffs executives think they can step in now and buy U.S. Steel for much less than they originally big, and a lot less than the Japanese firm offered?

Cincinnati Reds legend Pete Rose has a lifetime ban from baseball because of his betting. But today, everyone is betting on sports. What do Ohio lawmakers have to say now about the Rose lifetime ban, which has kept him out of the Hall of Fame?

Why did Cleveland City Council reverse itself and authorize more spending on a lakefront development plan?

What’s the best high school in Ohio, and which Northeast Ohio high schools make the list for U.S. News and World Report released this week?

What is lesser celandine, where did it come from and how is wreaking havoc in Northeast Ohio?

We thought we were finished talking about the Hulett ore loaders that one defined the Cleveland lakefront, but there’s new about the big building where the Huletts were manufactured. What’s up?

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 Google Podcasts, we are here.

On PodParadise, find us here.

And on PlayerFM, we are here.

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

chris (00:03.041)

Last week, we talked about seat belts. This week, we’re talking about distracted driving. There’s some remarkable new information about it in Ohio. It’s Today in Ohio, the news podcast discussion from Cleveland.com and the plane dealer. Chris Quinn here with Lisa Garvin, Laura Johnston and Courtney Astolfi. Courtney, you’re up. The Republican roadblocks to ensuring Joe Biden is on the Ohio ballot in November might be gone, but nothing is in concrete yet.

Did we hear something about next steps on Tuesday?

courtney (00:36.538)

Yeah, we did get a bit of an update here. And what we learned is that both sides of the aisle in the state house, in the house chamber, you know, they say they’re working on a solution here. House Speaker Jason Stevens and House Minority Leader Alison Russo told us on Tuesday, they don’t yet know exactly how they’re going to address this, but they said they’re, they’re working to ensure Biden appears on the November ballot. Despite that issue that the Democratic National Convention is going to miss.

this obscure previously waived state deadline. That’s kind of the issue at play here. And Stevens and Russo told us they intend to pass a permanent fix to this issue. So in past elections, the legislature would approve like one-time deadline extensions for this state deadline. And what Stevens and Russo say that they’re looking to do is to just fix this permanently. So those one-off approvals aren’t needed. And that’s kind of why it seemed, at least in our reporting,

Stevens was open a little bit more to this. He said, you know, this could be an issue faced by Republicans in the future. So it’s best to just like dispense with it now and get to that permanent solution. And of course we know this comes shortly after secretary of state, Frank Leroux said Biden might not qualify for the November ballot. There are a few different options out there to get around this August 7th deadline issue. And we’re gonna have to see which option goes through. Of course folks could go to.

courts and different things, but at least on the house side, they say they’re working towards a solution.

chris (02:09.261)

Yeah, initially, the Republicans were nananana boo boo. It’s a democratic problem. But then they realized that you’re going to be on the hot seat if you don’t fix this, because one, you’re going to lose and two, you look like you’re trying to meddle with elections. And they changed their tune. The problem is they haven’t fixed it yet and they don’t even have the concrete idea. We had an op ed that published in The Plain Dealer today, which pretty much says that says, look, you can say the courts will do it, but until the courts do it, it’s not guaranteed. The legislature.

created this problem with this stupid law. This was an unintended consequence of it, but they need to fix it. What would be nice is if Stevens and Matt Huffman, who are at war with each other over next year’s speakership, could get together on a stage with a couple of Democrats from their respective houses and say, okay, yes, we don’t get along on a whole bunch of things. We do get along on providing full ballot access to Ohioans. We’re here to tell you this is what we’re doing to fix it.

We’ll have this done by certain date. We do know how to serve the residents of Ohio. Wouldn’t that be nice? And wouldn’t it be nice if we could ride unicorns into rainbows?

courtney (03:16.726)

Sounds like good governing. Maybe we can expect that in Ohio.

chris (03:21.973)

Well, you just give the voters some confidence that despite all your shenanigans, on something as important as this, where Ohio has been a leader in the nation on safe and secure elections, you do the right thing. Do it bipartisan, put away all the animosity and say, look, stop worrying. We know a lot of people are worried. Stop worrying. We got this and fix it. Whether it’s a temporary fix and they come back and fix it permanently or what.

Just do it. Do the right thing for once and give the voters some confidence that you’re not absolutely in the bag for party over the people.

courtney (03:58.006)

You know, I guess we’re going to have to see how this unfolds. Like I said, there are several different routes this could ultimately take as, as folks are trying to address this issue and get Biden on the ballot. Stephen’s day give us a bit of a timeline. He said over the next month or so they’re going to be going through the minutia and trying to work it out. So hopefully there’s a quick resolution here.

chris (04:18.209)

But isn’t one of these guys big enough to reach across and say, if you’re Jason Stevens, hey Matt, let’s do this one. You know, the Congress came together to do the right thing by Ukraine, Democrats and Republicans, not of course some of the Republicans in Ohio, but most of them. And they did the right thing. We’re trying to stop a despot in Europe from running down the same path as Hitler did almost a century ago. Couldn’t these guys get together just once?

and say, okay, put away all the nonsense, let’s be decent human beings. I got my fingers crossed and you’re listening to Today in Ohio. Mike DeWine has said a few times that distracted driving is down since it became a primary offense, meaning police can pull us over for it. What other dramatic stats released Tuesday that support DeWine’s claim, Laura?

laura (05:09.727)

For the first three months of this year, there were about 1,500 crashes involving distracted driving, and that’s from the Ohio State Highway Patrol. In the same period in 2023, we were looking at 2,251. So we’re down 700 crashes. We were talking about five fatalities with distracted driving this year, 43 serious injury crashes, and that compares to six fatalities and 70 injury crashes last year. So those numbers…

are big and they’re probably just going to grow because we’re talking about three months. And Ohioans are getting pulled over a lot because of this. In February, more than 2,000 drivers in Ohio were cited for distracted driving versus the 656 that were cited last February. And the state keeps a distracted driving dashboard, which is kind of interesting because they have all sorts of little dots on a map.

explaining people they pulled over and what happened. They had a guy they pulled over for speeding and it turns out his phone was in front of his speedometer and he was playing a video game while he drove. It’s mind-boggling what these people are doing. So this law is getting problem driving off the road. People are getting excited. It’s serious. Interesting enough, the majority of distracted

chris (06:20.86)

Wow.

Lisa (06:21.127)

Mm-mm. Hm.

laura (06:35.263)

driving crashes occur during rush hour between 3 and 6 PM on weeknights, which is probably when everyone’s trying to catch up from what they missed on their phones during the day and they’re doing it while they’re sitting in traffic.

chris (06:46.569)

I gotta tell you, I haven’t noticed it being down. Everywhere I drive, I’m amazed at how many people are staring down at their devices. It’s stunning, because they’re driving 60, 70, 75 miles an hour and not looking at the road for long periods of time. It’s not like they’re glancing down, glancing up. They’re just going. And so I haven’t noticed it. And I’ve been at a lot of red lights where nobody’s moving when the light turns green. But these statistics are dramatic. And the idea that

Lisa (06:55.257)

Mm-hmm.

chris (07:15.213)

they’re pulling people over in such high numbers for it. I hope it works. I wish they’d start pulling over truckers because those big 18 wheelers on the highways are some of the scariest vehicles I see where they’re weaving all over the place. And when you finally, yeah, well, when you get past them and you look up and they’re not looking at the road and they’re driving these enormous vehicles, it’s like, God, how can you not be paying attention to the road with those things? But they veer all over the lanes.

laura (07:28.255)

Are they scarier than RVs, Chris?

Lisa (07:32.812)

Mm-hmm

chris (07:43.113)

The more of this, the better. This is the most serious threat on the highway. But it also, it gives some credence to what he wants to do with seat belts. If this kind of enforcement does make the road safer, would the same kind of thing happen with people wearing seat belts? Would more people wear seat belts if they knew they could be pulled over for it?

laura (07:52.479)

Mm-hmm.

laura (08:05.511)

Maybe it’s possible. The thing with distracted driving is there are still a lot of loopholes in this law. You are allowed to text at a red light. That is not illegal in Ohio. It’s just when you’re moving the vehicle that you, and there are so many other things, like if you’re doing your GPS, that’s allowed. So the fact that people are getting pulled over and cited for this, even when there’s so many loopholes, because I thought, oh man, no one’s gonna get cited when they could just be like, I was just.

Lisa (08:06.702)

I doubt it.

laura (08:32.107)

trying to get directions to something, but people are, and it is making a difference, which you’re right, this is very dangerous on the road. It’s way more dangerous for teenagers too, because they don’t have as much experience driving. I’m already dreading when my kid starts driving, but that’s 38% of the distracted driving crashes since 2019 are drivers 15 to 24. And the Ohio, sorry, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

has this stat on their website that if you look down at a text for five seconds while you are driving 55 miles an hour, and unless you’re on a two lane road, you’re probably not driving 55, that’s the equivalent of driving an entire football field with your eyes closed. That’s a very visceral image.

chris (09:16.381)

Yeah, I know. It’s very, it’s very scary. One last thing on the seatbelt thing. We had a round table with our editorial board members over the weekend about what we think of this idea of making seatbelts a primary offense. And two of our members wrote, Hey, this is a personal liberty thing. And there’s only 19% of the people doing it. We should let people be in control of their bodies and their safety. And we’ve been hearing from a whole lot of people saying, wait, wait. These are the same people that say we should.

Lisa (09:24.62)

Mm-hmm.

chris (09:44.949)

prohibit abortion and limit what people do with their bodies. And somebody’s brought up the transgender issue. People leaped upon the hypocrisy of the argument that you should leave me alone. It’s my body. And if I want to fly out my window and die, I can leave my body alone compared to their other positions. I thought it was interesting. I won’t name them. You’re listening to Today in Ohio.

Southern President Matt Huffman took aim at Ohio House incumbents who support House Speaker Jason Stevens in the primary election. Huffman wants to be speaker next year as we said, and Stevens is in his way. Tuesday Lisa, we learned what the mechanism was for Huffman’s effort. Who did all the dirty work?

Lisa (10:27.627)

It’s Make Liberty Win, which is a Texas group that funds legislative races across the United States that fit into their agenda. They spent $2 million in the Ohio primary elections. They opposed 15 incumbent Republican lawmakers here, most of whom voted with the Democrats to elect Jason Stevens, House Speaker. Now, four of these people that lost to their challengers, Sarah Carruthers in Hamilton, Brett Hillier in Euricsville,

John Cross and Kenton and Gail Pavliga in Portage County. But two candidates that were backed by Make Liberty Win for three open seats did lose those races. So they spent this money on text messages, phone calls, mailers and door-to-door canvassing. They’re not required to disclose their spending to the Federal Communications Commission like TV and radio ads. The executive director of Make Liberty Win, Barrett Young, says Stevens was targeted for private school voucher laws

didn’t go far enough, not promoting or advancing pro-gun legislation, and failure to eliminate the state income tax. He said, quote, they want to send a clear message that you can’t work with Democrats to kill Liberty legislation. And he said the election results, they’re taking credit for that. They say that, you know, it was an incumbent bloodbath and this is the most money they’ve ever spent anywhere on these Ohio primaries.

chris (11:53.081)

Were you surprised that it was an out of state group that was doing it? I mean, I thought this was an all Ohio kind of thing, but yet it’s a Texas group.

Lisa (12:02.167)

Yeah, I was a little bit surprised. There were some Ohioans that donated small amounts of money to this, but this is a group that actually is an affiliate of Young Americans for Liberty, which was established in 2011 after GOP Congressman Ron Paul’s failed 2008 presidential run. But, you know, Carruthers, who was targeted and lost her seat, she says they use dirty tactics.

They sent a mailer about a dispute between her and a surrogate mother for her two children. They spent about $37,000 on her race. And she’s worried that the candidates that they helped are now beholden to what she calls an extremist group.

chris (12:38.757)

And they are. And that’s the that’s the remarkable thing. Good digging on this one. I the whole mechanisms of money and campaigns have changed. And our readers are outraged about the way this is shaken out because it means that regular Ohioans that donate to campaigns, they don’t mean anything because their money is small ball compared to what’s going on behind the scenes and what secrecy

Lisa (13:02.331)

But they don’t necessarily support Huffman for the speaker’s job. They suggested Representative Ron Ferguson, the Republican from Wintersville, he’s a paid employee of Young Americans for Liberty.

chris (13:15.337)

Well, I’ve said all along, I can’t understand why the House members would elect Matt Huffman in his first year back in the House when there’s so many of them. You would think they’d think, what are you doing? You come in as our Lord and Master and you’re just getting here. We’ll have to see. Maybe there’s going to be a tight competition with all sorts of people throwing their hands in. You’re listening to Today in Ohio.

A whole lot of our readers are not buying this one, but Mike DeWine responded Tuesday to the news that First Energy secretly gave millions to a dark money group supporting DeWine’s original run for governor. Courtney, what did DeWine say?

courtney (13:47.582)

Yeah, Dwyane told us yesterday he just didn’t know about this money. Uh, you know, first energy paid $4 million in dark money into his 2018 governor’s campaign, and this was at a time, you know, obviously when the company’s self-admitted bribery scheme was in full swing, we learned about this money as part of ongoing litigation. In this case, it just has so many tentacles in every direction across state government and record show that the company first energy paid millions.

into 501c4 organizations. That’s the dark money organization. They can raise unlimited sums to spend on political ads without disclosing their donors. Two and a half million of First Energy’s money went to one group, State Solutions, and 500,000 of that was literally labeled as Dwan in the records. Another million went to another organization, Freedom Frontier, that was labeled as the Houston Campaign.

300 grand went to Securing Ohio’s Future, another group. And then we also learned about another $500,000 contribution to the Republican Governor’s Association after a meeting with DeWine and a fundraiser between him and folks involved with this scheme. So we didn’t know about that contribution before the election. And all of this is on top of traditional campaign donations.

For instance, FirstEnergy’s then CEO Chuck Jones hosted a DeWine fundraiser at his home. So all sorts of money is blowing in. And when DeWine was asked about this yesterday, he reiterated his support for nuclear generation in Ohio. He said FirstEnergy would have to answer how they spent their money. But he basically told us that both candidates for governor at that point came out with the same position.

that nuclear energy was important, DeWine said.

chris (15:42.901)

Oh, but the ridiculous part of that is this wasn’t about this was about HB six, which was a bad law and it was forged in corruption. We mentioned this yesterday. Everybody had stopped this. They first energy been trying to do it for years and every administration stopped it. Mike DeWine and Householder walk in and they immediately greased the skids, got this thing passed in record time. It stunk. And then when citizens tried to stop it, there was the violent campaign

people from getting signatures to stop it. Everything about this law stunk, and we knew it at the time. It took the Justice Department to lay it out, to act like, oh, I always supported this, this is good stuff. You can’t say that with what we now know. This stinks, it always stunk, a whole bunch of people previously had said no to it, and the only way it got done was through bribery. Our readers are not buying that he didn’t know about it. The danger is, is if he did know about it, and he said he didn’t,

That could come out in a deposition. All it would take is one first energy person to say, oh yeah, there’s email. He knew about it. So you kind of think, well, this is in the courts. There’s lots of depositions. So maybe he wasn’t told. Maybe he’s telling the truth, but why would you spend 4 million on somebody and not say, hey, I just sent 4 million your way. I’m trying to help you get elected.

courtney (17:03.026)

Fair, you know, fair point. I think it is worth noting a different kind of slice of this whole thing. You know, DeWine was asked, you know, back at the householder trial, first energy lobbyist Juan Suspitas testified he met with DeWine Husted and DeWine’s chief of staff, Laurel Dawson to discuss the nuclear bailouts at an October 2018 fundraiser hosted by the Republican Governors Association.

The next day after this meeting with the wine for synergy contributed 500 grand to the Republican governor’s association. I found it very interesting that yesterday to wine told us he don’t remember that meeting. He doesn’t remember the meeting. Doesn’t recall. I mean.

chris (17:46.341)

Yeah, yeah, that’s very hard to believe as well.

courtney (17:48.33)

Yeah. And he was also asked another thing worth noting, all these people in Dewine’s orbit who have different jobs now in state government or who once held state jobs in government, including Dan McCarthy and Josh Rubin, who were intertwined in this in various ways. Yesterday, reporters asked Dewine whether these employees belong on the state payroll and Dewine said he supported them. The buck stopped with him and he said these are folks he’s had confidence in for many years.

chris (18:18.305)

Yeah, he’s the guy that supported Sam Rindazo. So we know what his support means. She’ll point out to that the amounts of money we’re talking about here dwarf what is in campaign contributions. We always look at campaign contributions to look for patterns. But it’s the secret money that just blows out those campaign funds. You’re listening to Today in Ohio.

Cleveland Cliffs lost its bid to buy US Steel to a Japanese company that was willing to pay a lot more. So why do Cleveland Cliffs executives now think they can step in and buy US Steel for much less than they even bid originally and far, far less than what the Japanese firm offered? Farah.

laura (19:04.751)

Well, I guess they’re hoping for a fire sale in part because of President Joe Biden’s public comments about stopping that sale to the Tokyo-based Nippon Steel. And Cliff sees itself as U.S. Steel’s only other option. He’s the chief financial officer for Cleveland Cliff said the Nippon deal is dead. Other buyers stand no chance. Of course, U.S. Steel doesn’t have to sell. It could stay its own company.

But Biden told a crowd of union steelworkers in Pittsburgh last week that he may try to block it. So this deal was for $55 a share for US Steel, or $14.1 billion. Cliff’s had offered $54 a share during the bidding war. That was after their initial offer of $7.3 billion. But remember, they came back and said, our bid was really better deal because of all of these things we were willing to add into it. But now they’re thinking, hey, if

This could have been the best thing that ever happened to us that we didn’t get it because we could get it at a much better deal now.

chris (20:05.493)

It’ll be interesting to see if they can get the cut rate or if this is a negotiating tactic to bring US Steel back to them at the original rate. You know, you could see US Steel saying, okay, the Japanese thing’s going to fall apart. Maybe we can negotiate a deal where we go back to the Cleveland Cliffs. I can’t believe they’re going to get it cheaper than what they bid. But everything’s a negotiation.

laura (20:28.511)

Everything is a negotiation as we well know and people like to do that publicly sometimes for pressure. But the thing is, that’s exactly what I was thinking. The thing is with this deal, if Cliff’s did buy US Steel, that might not go through either because that would be such a big company controlling so much of the US market and that could be an antitrust issue.

chris (20:35.31)

Like the Cleveland Browns. Ha ha ha.

courtney (20:35.778)

Hehehe

chris (20:53.113)

All right. You’re listening to Today in Ohio. I got a soft spot in my heart for Cincinnati Reds legend Pete Rose, because when I was younger, he came to the Philadelphia Phillies and helped them get their first championship in 30 years. He has a lifetime ban from baseball because of his betting. But today everybody bets on sports. It’s become legal. So what, Lisa, do Ohio lawmakers have to say now about the Rose lifetime ban, which has kept him out of the Hall of Fame? And he’s getting pretty old.

Lisa (21:24.979)

Representatives Tom Young and Bill Seitz introduced House Concurrent Resolution 15, which urges Major League Baseball to lift the lifetime ban of former Cincinnati Reds player and manager Pete Rose for gambling on baseball games while he was a manager, and they want to get him inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame. This resolution also asks the Baseball Writers Association of America, which elects Hall of Fame members, to include Rose’s name on the ballot.

Seitz says it’s a little hypocritical to keep Rose out for gambling when MLB teams are heavily invested in sports betting. And Young said that we should be praising Rose’s contribution to baseball and every kid needs to know what Rose did during his career. Now, they haven’t spoken to Rose about this yet. I assume they will, you know, at some point.

Major League Baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred told the Associated Press last year he has no plans to lift the ban and he says it’s not affected by sports betting. He says rules are different for players.

chris (22:26.505)

Yeah, and I get that. And you do need to lay down the whammy. And what I think they’re trying to do, they’re going to wait till he dies and then he can go into the Hall of Fame. And I don’t see any future where he’s not in the Hall of Fame. The guy had an amazing career. But there are a lot of people looking now saying he’s 85 years old. Can he have the joy of that? Especially because

Lisa (22:43.918)

Yeah.

chris (22:52.041)

Everybody bets on baseball now. I mean, how long do you punish somebody for a mistake? It just seems like at this point it’s being mean, right?

Lisa (22:53.647)

Yeah.

Lisa (23:03.511)

Yeah, and Sites has a point. You know, I was watching the Guardians game last night. They had sports gambling, you know, where they have the ads right behind home plate. You know, they were all sports betting ads. Come on. Yes.

chris (23:13.781)

And he’s paid the price. I mean, for decades, he’s been humbled. And yet before he moves along, shouldn’t he have the joy of at least being in the hall of fame that he deserves? I’m glad to see Ohio legislators doing it. I doubt it’ll get us anywhere. You’re listening to Today in Ohio. Courtney, why did Cleveland City Council reverse itself and authorize more spending on a lakefront development plan after all the harsh words they had for how Mayor Dist and Bib went around them a week ago?

courtney (23:40.558)

Yeah, so council found itself in a bit of a bind with this with this request for Mayor Bibb for more money for the city’s lakefront planner field operations. On one hand, council was peeved that Bibb apparently disregarded its spending authority, at least that’s how council felt when he racked up a bill in excess of council’s spending cap on this contract. At the same time, the Browns have threatened to move to Brook Park and the city needs to be prepared with lakefront plans.

that would work without the Browns or the stadium there as a presence and as part of whatever the future of this part of town is going to look like. So they had to kind of weigh their feeling burned by bib on the spending category with like the city needs to be prepared because these negotiations are ongoing and the Haslams are saying what they’re saying about Broke Park. You know, initially when council held off on approving this money last week,

Council President Blaine Griffin wanted to know who on BIB’s team authorized this extra work that would put the city, if the city ended up paying for this extra work over that spending cap imposed by council. And he also wanted to know more details about the work that was done that would have exceeded the spending cap. We got, I guess, a few details this week, but we didn’t get a definitive answer of who done it kind of on the record at Monday’s finance committee.

Maybe Griffin was told in private, maybe they worked it out behind the scenes, but, you know, council moved forward with it. Again, I don’t think council wants to be caught flat-footed and having put the money it has put into the, into the lakefront plans. If all of that is kind of moot because the Browns maybe eventually aren’t there. It seems kind of like a waste. The goal of the city is to still have a lakefront that everyone can enjoy no matter who the tenants are on that lake.

chris (25:40.073)

I should note back when I covered city council and Mike Polenski and Bill Patman were running it, there is no way they would have signed off on this without getting that name. They’re the watchdog on the bib administration. Somebody in that administration broke the rules. They spent money. They didn’t have the authority to spend. And the council I covered never would have accepted. We’re not going to tell you. So things have changed down there.

courtney (26:06.754)

You know, the planning director did apologize and Bibb’s team was kind of hat in hand coming to council. Like, I wouldn’t I’d be curious to know what was said behind the scenes and not in the public meeting.

chris (26:08.83)

over the last few years.

chris (26:22.11)

But the residents deserve to know there’s accountability in the Council supposed to have it and they didn’t. They caved after a week. What’s the point of throwing down a week ago and then just going OK sure a week later? You’re listening to today in Ohio. What’s the best high school in Ohio in which Northeast Ohio high schools make the list for US News and World Report? It was released

laura (26:45.539)

Well, Chris, it’s my kid’s high school when they go to high school and the district where your wife works. So Solon and Rocky River, no surprise there. Those always rank at the top of our lists when we do the best schools in Ohio, but not the absolute best. That’s Walnut Hills High School in Cincinnati, according to the US News and World Report. That beat out Bexley High School, which is now ranked second. That’s outside Columbus. And Madeira High School

Then comes Solon, then comes Rocky River. And we have quite a few top schools in the top 50 in our area. Sugar and Falls comes in at seven, Hudson at nine, Brexville, Bodview Heights, 13, Kenston is 15, Aurora, 20, Bay High School, 24, and my alma mater at Revere is number 27.

chris (27:37.045)

There you go. It’s amazing how those schools stay in the top. It’s a remarkable record that they have of continuing their excellence.

laura (27:45.575)

I do want to point out that Cleveland School of Science and Medicine ranks at number 36, so that’s nice to see, but you’re right. And Cleveland John Hay Early College High School is number 29, but a lot of these are suburban schools that have the luxury of passing taxes when they ask for them, and I think a lot of that goes to there. But this is based on scores from students on state assessments for math, reading, and science. We got another state testing day today.

Strong results for underserved student performance, focusing on students who are Black, Hispanic, or for low-income households, and then the performance on advanced placement AP and international baccalaureate exams.

chris (28:23.137)

Okay.

chris (28:26.293)

You’re listening to Today in Ohio. What is lesser selendine or selindine? Lisa, I’m going to leave it to you to pronounce it. Where did it come from? And how is it wreaking havoc in Northeast Ohio?

Lisa (28:37.591)

Yeah, our gardening columnist Susan Brownstein’s gotten a lot of reader emails about Lesser Selendine, which is also known as Fig Buttercup. And let me tell you, I was at Euclid Beach walking last week. It is covered with Lesser Selendine. It’s a super invasive native of Eurasia. It’s on the Ohio Agriculture Department’s invasive list and at least nine other states. It’s very low growing. It’s pretty. It has small yellow flowers, but it spreads real easily via tubers and bulbils.

and it was sold as a nursery plant for years, and it may have even been harvested by gardeners from public areas to put in their own gardens. But they’re saying in Ohio, it’s likely that deer are spreading it. It’s really, really hard to eliminate. Mentor Marsh Manager, Becky Donaldson says they’re fighting it over in the Mentor Marsh with a group of volunteers. She says, do not pull or dig it out, even if it’s small patches. Do not put it out with your yard waste or in a compost pile.

The only way to kill it is with persistent application of herbicides like glyphosate. And it may take two to three seasons of persistent spraying. And she says, we shouldn’t accept this. Oh, it’s just a new plant. We can’t get rid of it. She says, we really need to fight back. But I couldn’t believe how much there was at Euclid Beach. I mean, the hillsides were covered with it.

chris (29:56.473)

But aren’t we supposed to avoid using whatever you said that chemical was? Yeah.

Lisa (30:01.155)

glyphosate. I think antierbicide is bad, but that’s the only way to kill this.

chris (30:08.333)

Hmm. Okay. Well, that’s a mixed message. I don’t know. It sounds like it’s going to get away from us. You’re listening to Today in Ohio. That’s it for Wednesday. Thank you, Lisa. Thank you, Laura. Thank you, Courtney. Thanks, everybody for listening. Come back Thursday to hear another conversation on the news.

Lisa (30:13.882)

Yeah.