CLEVELAND, Ohio – A property tax proposal in the Ohio legislature would give some relief to home owners with rising property values — but not in Cuyahoga County.
We’re talking about how the bill applies only to districts whose tax rates are at the 20-mill floor on Today in Ohio.
Listen online here.
Editor Chris Quinn hosts our daily half-hour news podcast, with editorial board member Lisa Garvin, impact editor Leila Atassi 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:
We have a property tax reform proposal that makes some sense from the Ohio Legislature, but it doesn’t apply to everyone. What would the proposal do?
In one of the more bizarre moves we’ve seen from the Cuyahoga County Council a moment of silence was called in this week’s council meeting to honor Charlie Kirk, the arch-conservative activist who was assassinated this month. What happened next?
We talked about them at the time they were passed, but some very anti-good government public records law changes are kicking in. What are lawmakers hiding from us now?
Cleveland Mayor Justin Bibb and Council President Blaine Griffin are in the middle of a big spat. Rather than pick up the phone and talk to each other, like adults, they staged competing press conferences to complain about each other. What’s it about?
We thought the controversies with the Cleveland Heights mayor would be over once voters recalled him, but Cory Shaffer writes about another issue that seems scandalous. What is it?
A Lake Erie College student came up with an innovative way to help a rescued goat. What is it?
Ohio has one of the top apple orchards in the U.S. in a new ranking, and it’s not Patterson’s? Sacrilege. Which one gets the honor?
More Today in Ohio
Former Gov. Dick Celeste endorses Amy Acton, who is using his playbook in rural Ohio
Cleveland vs everyone else: Inside Northeast Ohio’s battle for planning power
Jim Jordan ends some social media censorship, but platforms continue harming U.S. democracy
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Read the automated transcript below. Because it’s a computer-generated transcript, it contains many errors and misspellings.
Chris Quinn (00:01.421)
Ohio’s story of the year so far has been property tax reform and the crisis that exists. And we haven’t talked about it in about a week. We’re talking about it first up on Today in Ohio. It’s the news podcast discussion from cleveland.com and the Plain Beeler. I’m Chris Quayan here today with Lisa Garvin, Leila Tasi and Laura Johnston, the group that a listener once called the LA Women. Let’s begin.
We have a property tax reform proposal in the legislature that I am scratching my head about because I cannot understand the strategy with it. Laura, what is it? And then let’s talk about what might be wrong with it.
Laura (00:41.518)
Okay, so we’re talking about two parts here and stay with me because there was an original bill already introduced. It’s in the legislature House Bill 186 and then an addendum they added on yesterday. So the first idea is to roll back anything the taxes, the property taxes above a 20 mil floor. There’s something called this 20 mil floor. That’s the minimum tax rate a school must collect to qualify for state funding. I didn’t know there was anybody this low.
But basically it’s most of rural Ohio. There’s more than 400 districts in the state, but they’re not in Cuyahoga County. So if the floor matters, because if your property values increase, there’s this thing called House Bill 920. It’s been around since the seventies that lets your rate decrease. So the school collects the same amount of money. It’s supposed to protect the property owners from having skyrocketing bills when property values increase, but you can’t fall below that 20 mil floor. the
The rate can’t adjust below it. So what they’re saying is we’re going to get rid of this 20 mil floor so that you could get adjusted below. But that’s only going to affect some of these districts. The addendum they add on is said, hey, we’re going to go back to 2022. All of these increases that have happened since then, we’re going to wipe that out. We’re not going to claw back the money, but you can’t have it going forward. And that’s about $1.7 billion to these 400 and some school districts.
Chris Quinn (02:08.261)
Well, I actually agree with this, that part of it, because the unexpected and rapid rise of house prices jacked up everybody’s tax bills. mean, in other districts not affected here, it’s the inside millage. And that is what created so much of the aggravation. This is was unvoted increases and people are mad. So I get trying to give that relief and going back a few years to before those assessments. What I don’t understand is why
they’re limiting this just to those districts that are pretty much rural. This won’t apply to almost anybody listening to this podcast because most people live in this state in proximity to the cities. That’s where the population centers are. Those school districts all have taxes above that 20 mil floor that people voted for and this won’t apply to that. I thought when you first told me about this yesterday, they were fixing
Laura (02:59.182)
Mm-hmm.
Chris Quinn (03:05.251)
the 20 mil inside millage. That’s what really stuck it to taxpayers in our area. That is not protected by House Bill 920. So when the house values went up, that 20 mil inside millage meant huge increases in dollars collected. And I thought they’d fix that. But instead, they’re only helping rural taxpayers.
They’re not helping people in the cities and it’s in the cities and the suburbs of the cities that anger is highest. Cuyahoga County is leading the charge to abolish property taxes. How does this help?
Laura (03:42.894)
Okay, to be totally clear, because people are confused about millage, Inside millage is this built-in share of property taxes that is up to 10 mills statewide. So inside millage is separate from the 20 mill floor. The problem that gets really confusing here is that the 20 mill floor acts like inside millage when you fall below it. That’s because it’s a floor and you can’t collect less than that. So this actually has nothing to do with inside millage and the Republicans who are proposing this.
say they want to do something in the future with InsideMillage. But the problem is, like Chris, we’ve talked about this so many times, right? Everything is piecemeal. Here’s a bill, here’s a bill, here’s a bill. We don’t, we could pass them all. You could pass none of them. You could pass a couple of them. And nobody’s looking at this in a big picture format where they could say, okay, this makes no sense. Here’s how it would be a better way to collect these taxes. So I am sure that everybody is confused.
Chris Quinn (04:27.513)
No. No.
Laura (04:38.561)
And I don’t know that this is gonna help the burn it all down kind of idea of the eliminating property taxes altogether. Because how can you say, yeah, here’s some relief if you don’t even understand what it is and it only applies to some part of the state.
Chris Quinn (04:51.545)
But we did say when those assessments came out and the governments were reaping windfalls that it was wrong for them to keep them. That they should have recognized the pain that the taxpayers had. They weren’t expecting that money and they kept it. We call them pigs at the trough over and over again. They didn’t think of us as their constituents who were hurting. They just saw money they could spend on themselves and slush funds and all the nonsense that they do.
Laura (05:00.108)
Yes.
Chris Quinn (05:19.011)
So the legislature trying to address this element in the rural districts where it’s not about inside millage, that that actually is a step in the right direction. If they also address inside millage in the urban areas, that would be a step in the right direction. But like you said, we’ve been calling for it now for a while. We have a terrible tax system in the state. It confuses people. We ran a big project in the last week laying out.
Laura (05:41.101)
Mm-hmm.
Chris Quinn (05:47.324)
every municipality in our eight counties how their property taxes are apportioned so people could see what they’ll lose if they abolish them. But property taxes are just a tiny piece of the puzzle. We have income taxes and we have sales taxes and we have special use taxes and sin taxes and hotel taxes and car rental taxes. We have so many taxes that you don’t really know where they’re going. I if you think about it, the sin tax pays for stadiums and a convention center. The cigarette tax pays for the arts.
Laura (05:53.933)
Mm-hmm.
Laura (05:58.52)
Mm-hmm.
Laura (06:06.221)
Mm-hmm.
Laura (06:16.549)
for arts. They’ve just been grabbing pieces wherever they possibly could. They think, we haven’t taxed that yet. We can tax that. And so there is no big picture thought here of how we should be funding things that benefit the entire community, the entire state. So of course, that would take taking a step back and working together and taking a long time at something, none of which any of these legislators want to do. You mentioned that people were really angry and we asked for
Chris Quinn (06:16.976)
How does that make any sense whatsoever?
Laura (06:46.821)
school districts and cities to give back part of their taxes. I can think of two that did. There’s a school district. There was a city that said, we’re not going to take this full amount. We really went after Cuyahoga County. The problem is that all of Cuyahoga County is broke. They don’t have enough money. Sure, they should not have spent $66 million in slush funds. That was ridiculous. They’ve squandered money, but they also need to build a jail and they need to do all of these things. But the thing is,
Chris Quinn (07:06.854)
They’ve squandered money though.
Yeah.
Laura (07:14.027)
The money should come from the state. If we’re going to be really angry with the government, let’s look at it the billion dollars that we’re spending on private schools and how that could be used to help the public schools and give relief to the homeowners.
Chris Quinn (07:24.412)
But that’s not going to happen. mean, let’s be realistic. The legislature is not going to do that. So this is a step that’s kind of in the right direction. As for Cuyahoga County, they’re broke because they spend too much money. They waste money. Chris Ronane has created multiple programs that were not part of the budget before that are sucking it dry. We’ve talked about the sheriff’s unit. We’ve talked about slush funds. We’ve talked about the sustainability office. None of that existed before.
And by creating those, you’ve created hardship. We’re going to be talking about a story later in this podcast where they’re committing money they don’t have, tens of millions of dollars. Cuyahoga County is different. We have the worst leadership we’ve had in Cuyahoga County that I can remember now. And they’re squandering our money and putting us deep in the red. The taxpayers are the people who matter. People are hurting. We hear from them all the time.
Laura (07:59.566)
Mm-hmm.
Laura (08:16.097)
Yes.
Chris Quinn (08:19.088)
There are seniors that are going to have to sell their houses because they can’t afford to live in them because the taxes are too high. We should be thinking much more holistically about fixing taxes in the state. We need a good governor to do that. He’s a lame-o. His legacy is in the gutter now.
Laura (08:35.467)
And I don’t think Vivek Ramaswamy is going to be doing that. And let’s just remember we gave all the rich people in the state a big tax break in June.
Chris Quinn (08:38.882)
No, they’re not going to do it.
Chris Quinn (08:44.902)
billions of dollars we’ve given to rich people. You’re listening to Today in Ohio. In one of the more bizarre moves we’ve seen from the Cuyahoga County Council, a moment of silence was called in this week’s council meeting to honor Charlie Kirk, the arch-conservative activist who was assassinated this month, but who also was known for saying some pretty hateful things. Wait, what happened next?
Leila (09:09.293)
Well, so things got a little prickly, I think, after that. So this happened right after the Pledge of Allegiance when Council President Dale Miller sort of surprised his colleagues by asking for this moment of silence to honor Kirk. And that didn’t sit well with a few of the members. Vice President Yvonne Conwell, who is Black, objected immediately, saying she couldn’t honor someone who’d made such racist remarks about Black Americans. So she walked out.
and fellow members, Meredith Turner and Purnell Jones followed her, many in the audience applauded their decision. Miller later said he regretted not giving his colleagues a heads up about the moment of silence. Conwell was actually the only member who knew ahead of time that Miller planned to do that. But Miller still defended his choice. He argued that democracy requires rejecting violence no matter whose politics are involved. His critics countered that.
Honoring Kirk felt like validating beliefs they find deeply harmful to the community. Kirk, after all, built his brand on inflammatory rhetoric. He mocked Michelle Obama’s appearance. He questioned the intelligence of Black leaders, and he railed against diversity efforts as anti-white. So it’s not surprising that some members of council would choose not to honor that. After this moment of silence passed, the council members returned to their seats, and the meeting continued without incident.
Chris Quinn (10:37.232)
can’t believe some of them stayed in their seats. I think all of them should have gotten out. This is offensive. Look, this is the city that elected the first black mayor of a major city in America. This is a city that has long, long respected civil rights. And yes, Charlie Kirk should not have been killed. We’ve said it from the beginning. And Charlie Kirk had managed to have civil conversation with people who disagree with him. But.
Leila (10:40.975)
Hmm.
Chris Quinn (11:03.792)
He said some of the most hateful things I’ve ever seen. Our columnist, Eric Foster, did a brilliant column where he just quoted Kirk about a dozen times and interspersed in the quotes was Eric’s thought about how violence is not the answer, which is exactly what we should be saying. But how many times has Dale Miller called a moment of silence for the dozens of people who are mowed down by violence in Cleveland? just, this stunned me that in…
Leila (11:28.047)
Yeah.
Chris Quinn (11:33.405)
Cuyahoga County, know, a kind of a bastion for respect for civil rights, the council president would do it. And I don’t accept his answer because I don’t think he’s been uniform in fairly applying moments of silence to violence everywhere in America. Why Charlie Kirk? He’s not an elected official. He’s somebody that is very divisive. And I’m surprised that people like Sonny Simon and Marty Sweeney and Gallagher sat there for this. They should have gotten up and supported their colleagues.
Leila (11:50.489)
Yeah.
Leila (12:00.462)
Right. The moment of silence is pretty typical at county council meetings. It’s a standing tradition at the start of every meeting. Sometimes it’s tied to a tragedy like the Minnesota lawmakers shot earlier this year or the death of some other dignitary or elected official or something like that. But other times it’s simply left open for personal reflection. This obviously was very jarring to…
council members because they had no idea it was coming. They felt really blindsided by it. And of course, there’s all the baggage that comes with the Charlie Kirk issue. But it feels to me like Miller was aiming to rise above the fray and to use the moment of silence as a unifying statement against political violence. But in practice, it landed as this endorsement of Kirk himself, which is obviously this figure that every, you know, people find very offensive and harmful.
Chris Quinn (12:43.74)
Ha ha ha.
Chris Quinn (12:49.02)
Yeah.
Leila (12:53.657)
There’s a difference between condemning the violence that took Kirk’s life and holding him up as someone worthy of honor. And many people have been clear in the aftermath of the assassination that we can and should speak out against the toxic forces that led to Kirk’s assassination without crossing the line necessarily into celebrating a man whose words so often demeaned other people.
Chris Quinn (13:14.396)
I don’t think you needed to do anything here. I we still are you think I’m wrong?
Lisa (13:22.666)
No, but I, you know, you have said all along and a lot of people are saying this is that he did listen to other people, but as soon as he listened to other people, he disparaged their views and was very condescending. So, I mean, you know, this argument that he was open to other views, I think is a false flag.
Chris Quinn (13:39.838)
I just think doing what they did, you’re celebrating him. And I don’t think that’s what you do in Cuyahoga County. The Republicans are turning this into a very divisive moment. Donald Trump got up at the funeral and said, I hate my opponents. This is ugly business. But in Cuyahoga County, there is no need to create this division, so much so that three council members felt that they had to get up and walk away.
Leila (13:44.995)
Yes.
Chris Quinn (14:06.909)
What kind of government do we have here? This is this was not appropriate. Miller was way out of line doing it, way out of line not telling him, telling them he was doing it. If he would have told them that he was doing it, my bet is they would have said, what are you nuts? Don’t. There’s no need for Cuyahoga County to insert itself into this.
You’re listening to Today in Ohio. We talked about them at the time they were passed, but some very anti-good government public records law changes are kicking in. Lisa, what are lawmakers hiding from us now?
Lisa (14:39.876)
So there’s a new law that goes into effect this coming Monday in which the emails and texts of Ohio lawmakers among each other and among their staff are exempt from public records requests for up to two years. Now supporters of this say the rules mirror federal public records laws and they can discuss legislation freely without fear of public scrutiny.
Critics say, well, it shields the whole legislative process from the public, including potential criminal activity. Hello, House Bill 6, scandals and information on the lobbyists influence on these bills. And so this law says all documents and material are off limits until the two year legislative session ends. Now, lawmakers can still choose to release things voluntarily, but not on demand.
So we don’t even know the author of this bill. This was part of that last minute flurry of ads to the budget bill before it was passed this summer. But House Finance Chair, Brian Stewart, the Republican from Pickaway County has been on record saying that, you know, that Ohio public records laws needed updating. They date from before email and text. And he says, it’s the desire of lawmakers to do their job without 11 million people looking over their shoulder.
But ACLU lobbyist, Gary Daniels says, well, lawmakers can prevent any email they send from being public by just CCing another lawmaker.
Chris Quinn (16:03.963)
Look, let’s face it. What he said about 11 million people looking over their shoulder? They should. It’s the public’s business. They are not lords and masters of Ohio. They represent us. They are our people doing our business, and we should see it. And people should understand. They know this is wrong. They know operating secretly is wrong. They know that they can do really bad things this way, but Ohioans keep taking it.
Lisa (16:10.253)
Right.
Chris Quinn (16:32.625)
They keep moving that needle further and further over and Ohioans don’t do anything about it. So they get away with it. They are trying to hide bad deeds. They’re going to do sleazy things. They do sleazy things already. Now they’ll be protected from disclosure until actually they many of them leave office. This is wrong. This is not good government. This is not what America is about. And they’re nonsense about we haven’t updated public records laws and sunshine laws. Right.
because you’re supposed to work in the sunshine. There are no caveats. There are no exemptions to that. When you’re making laws, you should do it where we can all see it because they hide, they stick stuff in anonymously, and we don’t know where it’s coming from, including this law.
Lisa (17:18.392)
Well, and if we wait till the legislative session is over, the damage is probably already done. And I’m really of the mind that Larry Householder was the sacrificial lamb in HB6 and that they’re just continuing to do stuff with impunity. And this law is going to make it even easier.
Chris Quinn (17:34.482)
Yeah, agree. It’s anonymous who proposed it. That tells you everything that’s wrong with it. Only people who have ill intent want to work so secretly. If you’ve got nothing to hide, you don’t hide. They’re hiding. They’re going to do bad things, and it’s going to take even more work to ferret them out. They’re not serving Ohioans. They’re serving their selfish interests. This is a very bad day for Ohio. You’re listening to Today in Ohio.
Prosecutors have completed their crackdown on the street takeovers that terrorized Cleveland streets last year with one final sentencing. Laura, who was sentenced and what are the takeaways from these takeovers?
Laura (18:14.669)
So his name is Tyree Glory. He’s from Garfield Pites and 21 years old. He’s one of the ringleaders of this. picked locations and he spread the word on social media. So he was sentenced to nine months behind bars and three years on probation. He pleaded guilty to several felonies, including failure to comply, disrupting public service, and aggravated riot. What’s really interesting is that Mike O’Malley, the prosecutor, is saying they chose Cleveland specifically to do this because
The chase policy means they’re not going to get chased by police. And they were jumping on an officer’s car, basically, while this was happening. Because you think of street takeovers, and you’re like, OK, they were doing donuts at intersections. But this was all sorts of stuff. The takeovers disrupted RTA service. They delayed emergency vehicles. There were fireworks being set off, accelerants flipped, airsoft guns aimed at police. There were actually real gunshots fired during the gathering. Two people were treated for injuries at a hospital.
And there were 10 of them just on September 28th of 2024. So just about a year ago. And they played video of that in court where Lori was in this Dodge Charger sliding in circles around a cruiser.
Chris Quinn (19:26.045)
Okay, but nobody died. Nobody got hurt. And what Mike O’Malley is arguing is that we should have high-speed chases to catch people who are basically hooligans. And we know what happens with high-speed chases. We’ve seen it twice with the downtown reckless sheriff’s department. So I’m not buying the idea that because Cleveland police are handcuffed, they only do it here. Remember, they did it in Columbus. Same people. They went to Columbus. Columbus had a better plan for rounding them up that…
Laura (19:27.969)
Nobody died.
Laura (19:38.987)
Mm-hmm.
Laura (19:48.374)
It’s true.
Chris Quinn (19:54.207)
Cleveland ended up adopting. That’s how they found all these people. But they’ve all been locked up. They’ve all been sentenced. The right thing has happened. It’s been shut down and no innocent people died. Isn’t that the better outcome?
Laura (20:07.159)
Well, absolutely, other than killing innocent people and chases like we’ve talked about with the sheriff’s department twice this year, that is just awful, right? Because you’re right, nobody died, but they did terrorize the community. And what it seems like is we should have had a plan to deal with it and better investigation to see it was coming beforehand. This was all on Instagram, right? Like this isn’t secret black hole web stuff.
Chris Quinn (20:30.878)
Look, though, and I got caught up in one of these a couple of years ago where they took over an intersection and they sped between everybody. It’s disconcerting, but we’re not talking mayhem. It shouldn’t happen. And I’m glad that they figured out who these folks were because as we said during the sheriff’s policies, there are always ways to catch up with these folks later. They caught them all, a whole bunch of them, a couple of dozen. So I just, I don’t understand why.
Laura (20:53.036)
Mm-hmm.
Chris Quinn (20:58.526)
the outrage saying it’s ridiculous what the policy is. I’d rather preserve innocent life and catch people this way. I don’t know. Well, Layla, you’re being quiet. Lisa, you got thoughts?
Leila (21:09.679)
I completely agree with you, Chris. I wrote about this in a column recently. I think I abhor the high-speed chases. I think it’s one of the absolute worst policies, and especially I hate when they say, okay, well, if you suspect that the driver might be impaired or something like that, then you can go ahead and chase. That’s pretty, I can’t think of a worse scenario where you would chase someone on, you know.
Laura (21:31.596)
right?
Leila (21:39.523)
with high speed, all of it bad. There are so many technologies that police can deploy to track people. Get those drones in the air. That would be the easiest way to catch someone. Just follow them with drones and then send your forces to go collect them on the other side.
Chris Quinn (21:58.067)
Lisa?
Lisa (21:58.68)
Well, I would hesitate to say that these people were terrorized. mean, you know, we’ve all had our youthful indiscretions and I’ve driven down Superior and been surrounded by dirt bikes that just haul ass by me and popping their wheelies and everything. And I just kept driving, you know, I hit the brakes a little bit, but I think that we’re trying to paint these kids who are not really, they don’t have criminal intent.
Chris Quinn (22:21.254)
No, and actually in the suburbs, you got a bunch of white kids on electric bikes that are scaring the bejesus out of people. And we’re not talking about that. We’re talking about the kids in Cleveland. Look, I think the right thing happened here. They did bad. They got caught. Even the judge said, look, I’d love to throw the book at you. If I were a throw the book kind of judge, you’d be going away a long time. But this is your first offense. So I’m going to give you a chance. mean, that’s you’re right.
Lisa (22:29.698)
Right.
Chris Quinn (22:47.368)
They’re not terrorists. They were out having a good time because Cleveland doesn’t have enough things for kids to do. So I disagree with Michael Malley here. I think this is a good conclusion to the case. You’re listening to Today in Ohio. Cleveland Mayor Justin Bibb and Council President Blaine Griffin are in the middle of a big spat. But rather than pick up the phone and talk to each other like adults do, they staged competing press conferences to complain about each other. What a mess. What’s it about?
Leila (23:15.801)
First of all, this is so annoying to reporters. I just want to acknowledge that. I’m so sorry for all of the journalists that got dragged into these press conferences about this nonsense. So this feud blew wide open this week over a longtime council aide named Steven Rees. Bib’s people say that Rees misused his access to the city’s public records database by downloading more than 2,000 files.
Some of these files contain sensitive or confidential information. I guess the way this goes is that when someone puts in a public records request, the keeper of those records uploads them into the system and then the law department comes in behind them and then marks some files confidential or redacts information or that kind of stuff before they’re released. So this guy was going in and downloading the files in that window before they were marked confidential or redacted.
So they ended up cutting off his access and according to counsel, they’ve been privately pushing for this guy to get fired. Griffin says that that really crossed the line and he accused Bibb’s team of trying to strong arm counsel with threats of federal charges and media leaks if they didn’t oust Reese.
The mayor’s office flatly denies that they say they were just laying out the facts in these behind the scenes meetings and that an outside law firm is now going to investigate the matter. Neither side is budging on this. Griffin defends Reese as simply doing his job without proper training or guardrails from the city. And he’s threatening to stall the mayor’s legislative agenda if council’s access to records is curtailed. Meanwhile, the mayor’s team says,
Reese’s actions were really egregious and they insist that security protocols need to be tightened around him. And instead of hashing this out privately, both sides staged these dueling press conferences, they traded insults, they aired grievances and turned what started as a question about records access into a pretty obnoxious turf war at City Hall.
Chris Quinn (25:15.336)
Yeah.
Chris Quinn (25:21.662)
Yeah, and now they’re also saying that BIV doesn’t come to council meetings enough. Look, this is in my mind, this is a failure of the BIV administration. If they have records that are confidential, they don’t want people in city hall to see it’s on them to put the safeguards up. This guy doesn’t know when he’s downloading these records, what’s confidential or not. so so I think the BIV administration is way out of line. But I also they’re both out of line. This is something where we we have every right to expect them to have a conversation.
And when Griffin put out his memo to council about this going on, he said, full disclosure, I haven’t talked to the mayor. If I were on council, I’d be, why the heck not? That’s what you should be doing. You should be talking to the mayor. It’s absurd that they’re doing it publicly. The other thing is I want to castigate the administration. During the press conference, for reasons I don’t understand, one of Bibb’s spokespeople brought up
that the previous mayor, Frank Jackson’s family, had some crime issues. Why on earth you would drag that subject into a press conference like this is, I just don’t understand it, and it’s graceless. Frank Jackson did 16 years as mayor. He left three and a half years ago. He has not interfered with this administration. Why would Bib allow a staff member to publicly excoriate the former mayor for old family business?
Leila (26:46.499)
Yes, and especially considering that was in regards to Frank Jackson’s grandson who died tragically. Yeah, was just, the whole day was a mess. And it feels like the BIBS administration has been blaming the old guard quite a bit lately. They’ve been bringing Frank Jackson up here and there. But you know, BIBS been in office for nearly four years. He’s had plenty of time to fix this issue and others.
Chris Quinn (27:04.361)
here.
Leila (27:13.481)
And if the controls weren’t in place, that’s his responsibility now. So, I mean, yeah, and also to your point about Griffin openly admitting that he hadn’t picked up the phone to talk with Bibb, I feel like that tells you a lot about this. It really points to a much deeper breakdown in trust and communication between these top leaders. I don’t know, they got to get it together because there’s a lot at stake right now in the city. we can’t afford to have spats like this that
Chris Quinn (27:18.332)
Exactly.
Chris Quinn (27:28.511)
I guess.
Chris Quinn (27:32.735)
Yeah.
Leila (27:42.959)
We’ll end up tying up legislation. That’s what they’re getting down to.
Chris Quinn (27:46.194)
Yeah, it’s, they’re being children. You’re listening to Today in Ohio. Fair warning, we’re going to do two more stories, so we’re going long. We thought the controversies with the Cleveland Heights mayor would be over once voters recalled him, but Corey Schaeffer writes about another issue that seems scandalous. Lisa, what is it?
Lisa (28:04.056)
Boy, Cleveland Heights can’t get rid of this guy fast enough. So Khalil Sarin awarded several graphic design contracts to longtime friend, Francis Eugenia Colazzo. She got $65,000 in city contracts from January through October of last year before she was hired in the communications department of Cleveland Heights and eventually became communications director with a $114,000 annual salary.
She has known Sarence since at least 2011 and it appears to be close to him and his wife. One contract, she was paid $12,000 to redesign the planning department website, which never launched. Then she was hired to do the Cane Park rebranding. Her bid was two times higher than the other three bids. It was about $14,725, but the ultimate payout was $18,465.
She also was hired to produce the 2024 Focus Magazine editions at $32,000. That was never put out to bid. She asked to be paid via a bank-to-bank electronic payment, which is unusual, apparently according to finance director Tara Schuster. And then her job expanded to include miscellaneous graphic design projects like yard signs and social media graphics and so forth, which also didn’t go out to bid.
Chris Quinn (29:28.455)
It’s odd that direct payment. The only thing I can think is that she was in dire straits on a bill and ask them to get the money to her fast. But the way they recorded it was questionable. I just don’t understand the decision making process here. In fairness to the mayor, I live in Cleveland Heights and I get Focus Magazine. And I did notice over the past year a marked improvement in that publication. Actually, last Christmas,
We did three stories that came out of that because they were so interesting one about the the roller derby taking place in the Cleveland Heights rec center, but you that that just does not justify Reckless spending and this is astounding amounts of money. You’re paying to somebody who you could argue is not qualified I don’t know what the mayor was thinking and it’s one of those you makes you wonder whether the council has enough of a check and a balance against this
Lisa (30:23.854)
Yeah, it’ll be interesting to see. you know, since she became the communications director, she became a bulldog for him. I mean, she came out swinging, defending him as soon as she was hired to that position.
Chris Quinn (30:34.193)
Yeah, which is not supposed to be the job either. We should know pretty soon, right? The election should be certified and he should be out the door by next Wednesday, I think.
Leila (30:44.835)
You know, Chris, on the Focus magazine, I just want to note that I’m pretty sure those stories are written by the staff of the communications office. So she was not responsible for like the reporting and writing of the content. She was just kind of the design person. Just a note. Sure. Got you.
Chris Quinn (30:51.889)
Right. That’s correct.
Chris Quinn (31:00.767)
No, but it was it’s a much more polished publication. mean, it was remarkably so because I just looked at it and thought, wow, what happened here? You’re listening to Today in Ohio. We’re going to do one more. Cuyahoga County Council voted to further endanger Metro Health and commit taxpayers to an enormous future bill without any idea where the money will come from. It’s more evidence in my mind that charter government is a disaster, or at least this council is. Lela, what’s the money for?
Leila (31:29.081)
So council voted in the six to five split to sink $7 million of the county’s opioid settlement money into a brand new behavioral health crisis center at the old St. Vincent site. Supporters say that it could be a game changer. They are calling it a quote, no wrong door hub where people in crisis can get rapid stabilization, detox, short-term psychiatric care instead of clogging ERs or winding up in jail.
problem is that there’s no clear plan for how to pay for it long term. MetroHealth CEO warned that could also drain the $4 million annual subsidy that keeps their psychiatric ER in Cleveland Heights open, which might force it to close. Council members compared this decision to Sophie’s choice. They said, okay, we either invest in this shiny new center or we protect the county’s existing safety net. Backers, including Council President Dan Miller,
argue the need is too urgent to wait. They’re pointing out we’re willing to spend close to a billion dollars on a jail, so why not a fraction of that on mental health? But the skeptics called the whole thing reckless and a big gamble that could eventually require tens of millions more from taxpayers and the Adams board and maybe hospitals that haven’t signed on yet. So really the county just greenlit construction, but the bigger fight over how to actually fund and sustain this crisis center is still ahead. And Metro Health stands to lose out here too.
Chris Quinn (32:56.841)
Sophie’s choice sounds like a nice soundbite, right? But it’s preposterous. This isn’t that kind of a choice. There is a clear path. You don’t have the money, don’t spend the money, rely on MetroHealth. We’ve talked about how MetroHealth is in trouble, through no fault of its own. But six, seven years ago, MetroHealth, recognizing the dearth of treatment available in this county for mental health, built an entire facility in Cleveland Heights, brand new, shiny facility.
to take care of that need. I thought it was a valiant thing to do because we needed it. They could be part of this. Why isn’t council talking to MetroHealth about using that facility to serve the needs they have here instead of building something new? And look, it gets back to they don’t have the money and they keep spending money they don’t have. That is not what taxpayers want. And it’s one of the reasons taxes are so high. I’m amazed they did it.
MetroHealth was telling everybody the past couple of days, please don’t do this. We don’t want to close our new facility. We are trying to make that work. And they did it anyway. And just, these folks are not listening or they just completely kowtow to whatever Ronane wants.
Leila (34:11.853)
I’m with you, Chris. Metro Health is already the safety net hospital. It’s got the infrastructure. The county’s poured millions into that psychiatric emergency department. So propping up a new competitor instead of reinforcing Metro Health, I feel like that really risks weakening the system designed to serve people who have nowhere else to turn. And yeah, of course, the need for crisis care isn’t in doubt. Everybody agrees on that. I think we’re headed in the wrong direction with this.
Chris Quinn (34:38.813)
And can I point out that Sophie’s choice was a choice between two horrible things. One child gets killed or the other child gets killed. So basically what Dale Miller is saying, either way we go, we’re doing something awful. Bad analogy, and I’m sure it played well for some of the broadcast soundbites, but it’s a stupid analogy. There’s a clear choice in which way to go. And they went the opposite way. Look, there’s a move out that’s going to, I think, be on the ballot to abolish charter government.
And it’s this kind of thing that will get voters to vote to get rid of these folks and go back to the old way. They’re not serving our residents. You’re listening to Today in Ohio. We’ve gone really long. We hope it was interesting. I hope you stayed for it. Thanks, Lisa. Thanks, Leila. Thanks, Laura. Thank you for being here. We’ll be back Friday talking about the news.