CLEVELAND, Ohio – The Cuyahoga Valley National Park is open, but visitor centers are closed, volunteer and public programs are canceled and trail maintenance is paused.
We’re talking about the ramifications of the federal government shutdown 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:
Let’s talk shutdown, and let’s start with something used by millions of people each year. Is Cuyahoga Valley National Park open?
What is open, and what is closed during this shutdown.
Here’s an unexpected result of the shutdown. What is closed temporarily in Canton, and it’s not the football hall of fame.
We heard from House Speaker Matt Huffman yesterday as he justified his complete abdication of his duties as described in the Ohio constitution when it comes to drawing congressional maps. What nonsense did he offer to justify his failures?
Cleveland State University is ending a bunch of programs, and it has nothing to do with Jerry Cirino’s ridiculous higher education bill. What is being cut, and if I’s not because of SB1, what is the reason?
The Legislature keeps failing to fully commit to it, but Ohio voters sure want them to. What does a new survey show Ohio thinks about childcare incentives?
Cuyahoga County is broke, as we know, and before it borrows a billion dollars to build a jail, it is working to make its finances look better. Robbing Peter to pay Paul, basically. So, who’s being robbed?
Whoa. Renovating some low income senior housing in Lorain is going to cost $400,000 a unit? Who’s commissioning this work, Donald Trump? How could renovations like this be so costly?
How dry was September in Cuyahoga County?
More Today in Ohio
North Ridgeville’s income tax ballot blunder could doom a measure that would help most voters
“A complete failure:” Ohio’s property tax proposals would devastate public schools
How Ohio Republicans are deliberately dodging their constitutional duty on U.S. House maps
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Read the automated transcript below. Because it’s a computer-generated transcript, it contains many errors and misspellings.
Chris Quinn (00:01.217)
It’s been a while, but the federal government did shut down yesterday and that has implications throughout Northeast Ohio. It’s what we’re talking about on Today in Ohio, the news podcast discussion from cleveland.com and the Plain Dealer. I’m a horse, Chris Quinn here with Laura Johnston, Lisa Garvin, and Leila Tasi. And Lisa, let’s talk shutdown. Let’s start with something used by millions of people every year.
Is Cuyahoga Valley National Park open?
Lisa (00:33.4)
It is, but it’s open with a but. And that means that there will just be limited staff and services. So what will be closed at CVNP as the visitor center, volunteer and public programs are paused, trail maintenance has also been paused. And then there’s a lack of protection of the resources of the park and there’s going to be virtually no visitor assistance.
So the trails remain open. The Cuyahoga Valley Railroad will stay open, but their tracks are maintained and owned by the park. So if a tree falls across the tracks, then the train will probably stop. Most restrooms and parking areas will remain open. CVNP Conservancy CEO Greg Peckham begs people, if you go to the park, please recreate lightly because there won’t be people to pick up trash and all that kind of stuff. So be kind to the park.
And in a letter, he said that he was mindful of employees and National Park Service colleagues not being paid during the shutdown. It’s going to be a real challenge if the shutdown drags on. National Parks Conservation Association CEO Teresa Pierno says, this is putting parks and visitors at risk by opening the gates and virtually just walking away. There’ll be no staff to protect parks or visitors. She says it’s really irresponsible and dangerous.
and she’s warning that there might be mass staff terminations coming in the future as well.
Chris Quinn (01:57.155)
Well, and like I said, it’s millions of people you’ve chaired. So I think it’s 2.8 million in the most recent year. And I don’t see how you can keep the bathrooms open without anybody to staff them. They’re going to run out of the basics like toilet paper, unless somehow somebody’s working without pay. They won’t even let the volunteers come in. They’ve put out the word, hey, volunteers, you’re not allowed to do it because the coordinators aren’t here to work with you. So I don’t know how that works. You can’t close that park because roads go through it.
Lisa (02:06.586)
Right.
Chris Quinn (02:26.435)
public roadways and there’s trails everywhere. mean, nobody would listen even if they said it’s closed. But it is disconcerting that there’s no one there, like they said, to kind of protect it and keep things safe. It is worrisome that if this goes on a long time, how much this park could deteriorate. I don’t know. Do we really think they’re going to fire them all? I mean, how could you fire everybody permanently and continue to have a park?
Lisa (02:26.542)
Right. Right.
Lisa (02:53.584)
Well, but look at this administration. They fired a bunch of people through Doge and now they’re busy hiring him back because they realized that oops, we really need these people. I don’t know. But you know, Trump is threatening, you know, to do permanent and Russell vote are threatening to do permanent terminations through the shutdown. So it remains to be seen.
Chris Quinn (03:13.931)
Well, they’ve worked feverishly to make this sound like it’s the Democrats’ fault. But there was a survey released today and Americans are not buying that. They know that the Republicans control everything. It’s their fault. So I don’t know how long Trump can stand up to that. His numbers are abysmal. Everything about the economy people are blaming him for. They didn’t like what he did with Jimmy Kimmel. That was a big mark against his fight to destroy free speech.
And now what he’s doing to the government and the economy, these people not getting money, that’s a problem. Ultimately, it’s weird. Even though they don’t work for whatever the period of time is in the past, they’ve always been paid, which is strange because it’s like free vacation. You’re listening to Today in Ohio. Laura, what is open and what is closed during this shutdown?
Lisa (03:55.65)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Laura (04:04.362)
Well, it’s not super straightforward because we don’t have a lot of information from all of these agencies. When you’re looking at NASA, about 15,000 of the 18,000 total workers nationwide are going to be furloughed. But if you’re working on the International Space Station, satellite, and Artemis programs, the NASA Glenn workers there in Cleveland, they’ll be reporting to duty.
Defense Finance and Accounting Service Payment Center in Cleveland. That’s about 1,800 employees there on the job. There’s still funding to pay them. We got that from the union there. The post office is still operating because that’s self-funded entity. Social security, people are still going to receive payments, but the processing of new application may face significant delays. Federal courts typically maintain operations for several weeks. They have reserve funds. Once those are depleted, the services are limited.
VA facilities stay open, benefit payments continue, processing is a problem, active duty service members continue duties but do not receive paychecks. That is rough. museums, the Smithsonian’s opening until at least October 6th when it’s going to run out of money then. So if you planned a DC trip this weekend or coming up, that might not be a good one.
Chris Quinn (05:25.609)
It’s fascinating to me that, we get blitzed by all of the politicians trying to peddle their talking points. And Max Miller has sent out nonsense about how Democrats voted for the shut down. It’s all sorts of stupid stuff. nobody I’ve seen has ever reported how all these Republicans and the Democrats separately are given the talking points. There must be some official communication that says
Laura (05:52.264)
Hehehehehe
Chris Quinn (05:55.363)
Hey, everybody say repeatedly, it’s the Democrats, it’s the Democrats, it’s the Democrats, because that’s what they all do. They’re like lemmings all falling off the cliff. But no national reporter that I’ve seen has ever gotten the actual communication that says, hey, this is the nonsense we want you to peddle.
Laura (06:13.24)
Well, that’s a very good question. I don’t know if there’s an official memo that comes out. mean, they all just look to Donald Trump and whatever he says, that’s what they repeat. and he’s, you know, posting.
Chris Quinn (06:23.939)
Yeah, this is way too programmed. Maybe it’s a phone tree, but they all do it at the same time. mean, John Husted is another empty shirt. There really isn’t much in the way of original thought there, but he got his email out about how, you know, he voted to avoid the shutdown. The Democrats want the shutdown. Somebody is directing that. They’re all
Laura (06:43.852)
Right. It’s.
Leila (06:46.266)
Do you really need someone directing that message? It’s so natural for them. It’s like those toys from when you were a kid where you pull the string and it just says this, know, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, pull the string. It’s the Democrats. You know what I mean? You don’t need someone coordinating that. That is how they’ve been, that’s their strategy for years.
Laura (06:49.336)
Bin.
Chris Quinn (06:52.603)
Hahaha.
Chris Quinn (06:58.413)
Ha ha.
I don’t know.
Laura (07:08.014)
And they’ve had repeat of this. mean, how many times have we gotten almost to the shutdown and how many times have we really did shut down? I mean, we went 200 years as a country before a government shutdown and we’ve had 20 since 1976. It just seems like it’s cyclical at this point. And the last one was under Trump, 35 days, the longest it ever lasted, cost the government nearly $4 billion. So this is not a smart move financially for anyone.
Chris Quinn (07:37.825)
Yeah, and the saddest part is you are wreaking havoc on federal workers who are become pawns in this game. And that’s very unfair. We’ve heard from some and it’s just not right. You’re listening to Today in Ohio. Here’s an unexpected result of the shutdown. What is closed temporarily in Canton, Leila, and it’s not the Football Hall of Fame.
Leila (08:00.77)
It’s the National First Lady’s Library and Museum. And it’s because it operates inside national park service buildings. The government shutdown forced it to close its visitor center, museum, research library, shop, and even the historic Saxton McKinley House. The museum says its daily operations rely on park rangers and federal staff. So when the park service goes dark, it really has no choice but to lock its doors too. So this is how it’s going to be at least until the shutdown ends.
Chris Quinn (08:29.335)
Yeah, I just didn’t see that one coming. It was an unusual one, which makes it worth talking about. You can’t, it’s hard to pinpoint all of the specific things that are cut. I mean, we still don’t know how many people are not working at NASA. Parts of it are operating. You got to keep dealing with the people in space, right? You can’t just cut them off. And a lot of NASA facilities have some role in that, but it’s very hard to tell.
Leila (08:50.159)
Right.
Chris Quinn (08:58.139)
And these are people that unless they’ve built a buffer of money, how do they pay their mortgage or how do they pay their rent and things like that? mean, like Clara said, the last one went for more than a month. And how would people function who live paycheck to paycheck if they haven’t put away a buffer? You’re listening to Today in Ohio.
Lisa (09:18.743)
you
Chris Quinn (09:18.989)
All right, Lisa, we heard from House Speaker Matt Huffman yesterday as he justified his complete abdication of his duties as described in the Ohio Constitution. I’m talking, of course, about drawing congressional maps. What nonsense did he peddle to justify his failure to do his duties?
Lisa (09:37.982)
So House Speaker Matt Huffman, and I’m going to use a great line from the movie Treasure of the Sierra Madre. Huffman is saying, we don’t need no stinking maps. He hasn’t created a proposed map. The Republicans in the state house have not created a proposed map and they haven’t asked anyone to do so. Huffman says it’s possible later this month, depending on public input that they got from two hearings and online submissions.
They did blow that September 30th deadline to pass maps with bipartisan support, but he says that doesn’t mean the system failed. And he also dismissed public criticism, which they got a lot of. He says some of them are paid operatives. Where have we heard that before? And he says, well, we got opinions from constituents while talking in the grocery store, at the Rotary Club, and at their district offices.
Chris Quinn (10:26.721)
Ha ha ha ha.
Lisa (10:29.678)
And so in a letter to governor Mike DeWine from Senator Nikki Antonio of Lakewood and Danny Isaacson of Columbus, they’re asking him to convene the redistricting committee ASAP, have multiple public hearings and draft maps by October 31st, which is the deadline to pass them with democratic support.
Chris Quinn (10:50.125)
They’re not going to. mean, the saddest part of this is they don’t even respect us enough to go through the charade. And then they peddle this nonsense about that it’s paid operatives. Hey, everybody, we’re one of the biggest critics. No one’s paying us to do that. We’re looking at this like common sense people saying you are failing to honor your vow to protect and serve the Constitution. But they didn’t even pretend.
Lisa (10:57.563)
Mm-hmm.
Chris Quinn (11:17.557)
If they would have put up a bogus map, they could at least pretend that they tried. They just blew it off completely. And now they are feeling some heat because they are not doing their job. They’re required to make a good faith effort to work with the Democrats. And they’re saying, no, we’re not going to do it. They didn’t do a thing. And then say, well, our work was in the grocery stores where you couldn’t see it. It’s hilarious. That’s one of the lamest excuses I’ve ever heard. It’s almost like
Lisa (11:21.798)
Mm-hmm.
Lisa (11:40.046)
Yeah.
Chris Quinn (11:46.625)
You’d love to see his facial expression to see if he’s resisting a grin, because he knows how preposterous that is. That’s the new place. In the old days, they did these maps in secret in hotel rooms. They’ve moved the operation to the grocery stores.
Lisa (12:01.442)
Grocery stores. Well, it makes me wonder about what they’re actually going to produce and when they’re going to produce it because right now they hold, Republicans hold 10 to 15 congressional seats in Ohio. There are talks that the maps will have them holding 12 to 13. So it’s got to be a pretty ugly map if they have one in that they’re holding it off until the last possible.
Chris Quinn (12:24.803)
Yeah, they’ve got a map. They know exactly what they’re going to do. And like you said, they’re wait till the last minute and then they’ll see if they can get it through the courts. It is the most cynical, disrespectful treatment of Ohio voters we’ve seen ever. And this is after voters went to the polls and voted in large numbers to try and fix this thing. And they’re thumbing their nose at it. And it’s disgusting. And for him to give out that nonsense shows his utter contempt for the people he serves.
You’re listening to Today in Ohio. Cleveland State University is ending a bunch of programs and it has nothing to do with Jerry Serino’s ridiculous higher education bill. Layla, what is being cut? And if it’s not because of SB1, why is it being cut?
Leila (13:10.51)
Well, the university is pulling the plug on 22 academic programs and they’re suspending another 14. And this includes everything from the doctorate and nursing program to an MBA options, environmental studies, even some language degrees like French, Spanish and Arabic. But this isn’t about Senate Bill 1 like you said, which that law forces colleges to cut low enrollment programs, among other things.
CSU actually started its own review back in 2023 and says that this is part of a long-term strategy to deal with declining enrollment and a multimillion dollar budget gap. Fewer students are choosing CSU and really college in general. So the school says it has to right size its offerings even as it promises current students that they’ll be able to finish the degrees that they started.
Chris Quinn (14:03.829)
I was a bit surprised by some of the programs though. It was a special education program for early childhood education, the master, the doctorate in nursing. We have a huge problem with the lack of nurses as we all know. And anything that I would think would help improve the nursing situation would be a win. These were programs that serve very specific needs and I guess they just don’t have enough people.
Leila (14:07.844)
Yeah.
Leila (14:17.358)
Right.
Chris Quinn (14:32.446)
in them to justify continuing to spend for them.
Leila (14:34.146)
Right. Right. And that doctorate nursing program specifically is one that I found curious too, because those are people who go on to often become educators and teach the next generation of nurses. so that was straight. This really, it’s not an obscure, a list of obscure disciplines. There were some really disheartening inclusions on this list.
Chris Quinn (14:44.653)
Right.
Chris Quinn (14:54.242)
No.
Leila (15:00.632)
But also, it’s worth noting that they’re reopening admissions to a handful of programs. Art history, chemistry, and museum studies are back on the list, along with elementary and secondary education master’s programs that have been retooled. So they’re trimming in some areas, but they’re also signaling that they see demand in other areas, and they want to grow those. But I’m also curious about whether cutting a degree
also wipes out all the courses that go with it. Like if you’re majoring in business or education, but you’d love to pick up Spanish or French as an elective, will those classes still exist? Or does eliminating the program mean the whole catalog of courses disappears too? What do you think?
Chris Quinn (15:49.857)
I don’t know. I imagine it’s a mix. This is a painful story, but I do have to respect Lauren Bloomberg because they’re in financial distress and you have to make hard decisions when you’re in financial distress. Cuyahoga County Council could learn a thing or two here. I also was impressed that they didn’t have to do anything to comply with SB1 because they’ve regularly done that
previously. They were trying to be fiscally responsible before, so they weren’t one of these institutions that suddenly had to get rid of a bunch of stuff because it wasn’t bringing things in. They’re ahead of the game. So this is good news, as painful as it is. When the money’s tight, you’ve got to tighten the belt, and they’re tightening the belt even though it hurts. It’s impressive, but man, that list of courses was an eye-opener.
Leila (16:17.86)
Hmm.
Leila (16:43.904)
It’s very, yeah, but I feel like, I mean, Laura and I both have kids who will be in college in the next several years. And I just can’t imagine what the higher education landscape is going to look like by then. I mean, maybe we will be sort of encouraging our children to look at other career paths that don’t route them through college at all. And I think a lot of young people are already doing that, and that’s part of what’s driving this trend.
Chris Quinn (17:11.347)
Or you’ll send them out of state to states that still have a commitment to higher education because Ohio has so seriously cut and chopped and now it’s creating an ideology that is idiotic on the campuses, is going to drive people away. The best professors are probably going to move to other states.
Laura (17:17.966)
Ugh.
Laura (17:29.112)
It’s.
Laura (17:32.911)
It’s really interesting that a lot of kids in Ohio are looking at Southern schools. They want to go to SEC schools with really big football programs, and they want the year-round warmth because they won’t have to go to school in the summer, right? So they won’t have to deal with the worst heat. So we’re already seeing people want to leave the state. And unfortunately, out-of-state tuition is not an easy thing to look at that sticker price. And I keep thinking, like, Leila, something’s got to change. There has to be like…
a reconstitution of how higher ed works because it can’t just keep cutting and cutting, but I don’t know what the answer is.
Leila (18:07.64)
I’ll tell you though, another thing that I’m monitoring this morning, I was just reading the story in the New York Times about the pressure that Donald Trump is ratcheting up on universities by issuing those demands. One of them though is locking in prices for five years, which that was the first time I was ever like, huh, that’s a good idea, Donald Trump. But everything else on the list is just squashing the culture of universities and the freedom of thought.
Chris Quinn (18:27.553)
Well, remember
Leila (18:37.368)
So, you
Chris Quinn (18:38.211)
We had locked prices under, it was Strickland, right? They’d locked the prices for some number of years. Yeah, we’d have to go back and find it. Getting back to what Laura said though, I mentioned I had spent some time in Charlotte, North Carolina recently and it was a slap in my face about a boom town. I had lived outside Orlando for nine years, which was wild with growth and the whole attitude of a growing area.
Leila (18:43.259)
is that right? I don’t
Chris Quinn (19:04.575)
is very, different than what we have in Northeast Ohio. Lisa saw it in Houston. And I was in Charlotte, and it just reminded me, there’s such an optimism in those southern cities that are growing. Nashville, and there’s so many of them. And I think a kid from Ohio, which is more a bond, because we just are not growing, and we’re not thriving like we should. We pretend we are sometimes, but then you go to a place that is, and you’re reminded, we’re not. We have not figured it out.
Laura (19:16.43)
Mm-hmm.
Chris Quinn (19:34.551)
And I don’t know, if I were a kid visiting those areas, I’d be attracted to that. It’s a completely different attitude.
Laura (19:42.478)
Well, my daughter really wants to go to Chapel Hill and they have like an 8 % acceptance rate and the tuition is insane. I was like, good luck, sweetheart.
Chris Quinn (19:50.787)
Interesting. You’re listening to Today in Ohio. All right, Lawrence, your topic. The legislature keeps failing to fully commit to it, but Ohio voters sure want them to. What does a new survey show Ohio thinks about child care incentives?
Laura (20:09.186)
I feel so vindicated by this survey, right? This is what we’ve been talking about for several years here. Nearly 80 % of Ohio voters say the ability of working parents to find and afford quality childcare is either a state of crisis or a major problem. Two-thirds believe federal funding for childcare and early learning programs for low-income families is a good use of taxpayer money. 83 % say they should support tax incentives and other benefits to Ohio businesses that help employees find
quality child care. 70 % say we should be spending more state investment on publicly funded child care and 76 say we should create a state funded paid leave program for the first six weeks of a baby’s life. All of these. I just want to stand up and applaud the state like, yes, thank you Ohioans for believing in publicly funded child care. This is so important and it’s not what the state legislature wants to hear. This survey was done.
commissioned by Groundwork Ohio and the Ohio Head Start Association in partnership with some other early childhood groups. they paid for this. 600 registered voters conducted in this month and, sorry, we’re in October now, it was September, credibility interval of 4%. So I don’t want people to think the results are skewed, but I am so glad to see these kind of numbers and I hope the legislature continues to do something a little bit more about child care.
Chris Quinn (21:34.711)
Well, let’s remember too, this is Governor Mike DeWine who gave billions in tax cuts, cash basically, to rich people. That’s what we’ve done with our state money. We’ve taken it and given it to the wealthy. It’s…
Laura (21:43.534)
Mm-hmm.
Laura (21:48.046)
Plus we’ve given them cuts for their private schools.
Chris Quinn (21:50.947)
Yeah, but I mean, that’s what we’ve done. We’ve taken our state money and given it to wealthy people. And we’re not spending it on things like this. That’s the direction of Mike DeWine and elected Republicans. How much of the state’s money can we give to the rich while we cut programs left and right and cut schools and don’t fund childcare? That’s how broken this state is. We know what the people want.
Laura (21:56.813)
Yes.
Chris Quinn (22:17.399)
They just aren’t doing it. I don’t know why the Democrats can’t get across. This should be their message. The Republican Party is a party that gives billions of dollars to rich people while sticking it to everybody else. That’s the whole theme of this party, and the Democrats don’t add a message in.
Laura (22:35.298)
I did see a New York Times op-ed on Monday, I believe, where they were saying the Democrats’ best offense is to do an eat the rich kind of thing, a populist movement. And you’re right. When we talk about that billion dollars for private schools, let’s remind people that’s $6,000 for every elementary school kid, $8,000 for a high school kid of money coming from the state coffers going to those private schools because…
Chris Quinn (22:44.427)
Right.
Laura (23:00.91)
people, most of them who were already sending their kids to expensive private schools and can probably afford it are taking advantage of this program that’s open to anyone. I think after a certain point it’s graduated a little bit, but it’s a whole lot of money. If we gave everybody with a kid five and under, six or $8,000 to pay for their childcare, which is about 12 or $13,000 a year for each kid, that would be a huge help.
Chris Quinn (23:14.721)
Right.
Chris Quinn (23:25.793)
Right, I know. It’s just at some point, Ohio is going to wake up to the fact that their leaders have just abandoned them. You know, we talked about it with the districts. You’re listening to Today in Ohio. Cuyahoga County is broke as we know, and before it borrows a billion dollars to build a jail, it is working to make its finances look better. It’s basically robbing Peter to pay Paul now. So, Lisa, who’s being robbed?
Lisa (23:53.254)
So County Executive Chris Ronane is asking council to transfer two and a half million dollars from the social impact fund back into the Health and Human Services levy fund to help build their cash reserves and avoid default on a charter requirement for them to have a minimum balance. County Budget Director warned Health and Human Services that
Health and Human Services needed $28.5 million in reserves to be compliant with the charter, but they’re projected to end the fiscal year with only $22.1 million. So they’re still short $4 million even after this fund transfer if it’s approved. The Social Impact Fund was established in 2014 to leverage private investment in the county social service system. It currently has $5 million.
But there’s only one program that’s drawing funds from it. It’s called Pay for Success. It helps Ohio National Guard members with scholarships graduate from college and help boost the low completion rate among these people. So they’re contracted. The fund is contracted to spend $2.5 million by April of 2029, but that money is not guaranteed. The contract is performance based. So it’s possible that even more money could be moved.
out of the Social Impact Fund and back into Health and Human Services Levy.
Chris Quinn (25:14.305)
The odd thing here, of course, is what we talked about last week, where they committed seven million to this new psychological center for people who are in need when they don’t really have the money and they’ve committed 10 years of spending and they have no idea where the money’s coming from. So it’s interesting to be talking about this kind of belt tightening that affects real people when they’re right on a week later from squandering money they don’t have.
and harming MetroHealth in the process. Everything’s upside down with how this government is operating. I just don’t understand it.
You’re listening to Today in Ohio. Whoa, Layla, renovating some low income senior housing in Lorraine is going to cost $400,000 a unit. Who’s commissioning this work? Donald Trump? You could build houses for $400,000. How could a renovation like this be that costly?
Leila (26:12.324)
Well, I think the commissioners in Lorraine County also can’t believe the numbers they’re seeing on this renovation. It’s Wilkes Villa. It’s a 174 unit senior housing complex in Elyria. And the planned rehab comes with a $69 million price tag. And that does work out to nearly $400,000 per apartment or about $433 a square foot. Commissioner Marty Gallagher, who has a construction background, flat out said,
This looks like it would be cheaper to build brand new. He called it the cost of a luxury house. And Commissioner David Moore piled on too. He demanded that the housing authority explain why the price is so inflated. They’re not against improving the conditions at this low income high rise. Residents badly want upgrades like air conditioning and things like that. But the commissioners are baffled on why fixing up aging public housing is penciling out at the same cost as high end residential construction.
That said, much of that outrage from the commissioners was voiced at a meeting when no one from the housing authority was there to hear it. Because at a different meeting earlier in the week, the commissioners had actually already gone ahead and greenlit up to $37 million in tax-exempt revenue bonds to help finance this project. Now, of course, a key detail here is that these bonds aren’t going to be county debt. They’re what’s called conduit bonds. The county signs off so the housing authority can tap into.
tax-exempt financing, but the repayment obligation is entirely with the project and its investors. So the money gets paired with federal low-income housing tax credits, HUD-backed FHA loans, and developer equity. So technically, the county taxpayers are not on the hook, but the commissioners still want answers on why the per unit cost is so high. But during the meeting where the bonds are approved, only one commissioner raised that question with the housing authority, and the answer that they gave was
just some gobbledygook that you couldn’t really discern. The only specific that you could point to was the installation of air conditioning in every unit. Otherwise, it’s lost. I have no idea why this is costing so much.
Chris Quinn (28:21.635)
Yeah, and look, it’s not county tax dollars, it’s federal tax dollars. It’s still the public’s money. This stinks. This seems like it’s built in a huge buffer to give money to somebody. And you know as well as I do that when low income housing is done, they don’t use the high quality materials that are going to last a long time. They use junk. And these things get run down very quickly because you don’t invest in
Leila (28:27.225)
Sure.
Chris Quinn (28:50.933)
in high quality work that can take the beating that it’s going to take over the years. Something is fishy here. This needs, and we’re going to do it, a full examination. I cannot for the life of me understand why housing like this would cost $400,000 a unit to renovate. I mean, that’s beyond double. mean, this shouldn’t be anywhere close to that. And you’ve got to wonder.
What’s going on here? This is an agency that doesn’t have any watchdog on it. They make decisions pretty much with no notice. Now we gotta pay attention and find out what is this money being spent on?
Leila (29:28.73)
I agree, I can’t wrap my head around it either. What on earth could possibly drive the cost up that high? Even if you told me there’s some major infrastructure issue underground or in the buildings, at that price tag, you’d think you would make more financial sense to just demo the property and build something new from the ground up. The housing authority better get their records in line because we’re coming for them.
Chris Quinn (29:52.451)
And where’s HUD? HUD’s supposed to audit this stuff. Where are they? They’re supposed to be watching for waste. So an alarming story. You know, listening to Today in Ohio, we’re going to do one more. How dry was September in Cuyahoga County,
Laura (30:05.644)
Just look at your grass. really, really been dry. Just 0.75, so three quarters of an inch of rain fell at Cleveland Hopkins in September. That’s compared to a normal of 3.93 inches. So way, way off there. It’s the second driest September in Cleveland since 1938. That’s when record keeping was moved to the airport. So it could be actually a whole lot earlier than that. The only drier September in the last century basically.
1964 and that was 0.74 inches. So we were really, really close to breaking that record. We’re not so far off for the whole year’s total. at 30.72 inches through September 30th compared to the normal 31.07. We had a very rainy spring, if you remember that. So, well, it’s been lovely. I’m not complaining. It’s not good for crops or grass or…
anyone who actually wants fall weather to arrive.
Chris Quinn (31:03.319)
Well, Lisa just installed a beautiful new backyard. So you’ve got to be hoping that this trend changes Lisa, because you got to get those plants watered.
Lisa (31:06.524)
Well yeah, I’ve been out every night watering 22 new trees in my backyard and my landscaper warned me, says, I hope you don’t have a full-time job because you’re gonna be watering. So yes.
Laura (31:06.733)
Yes.
Laura (31:21.838)
Lisa can’t podcast because she’s too busy watering.
Chris Quinn (31:23.294)
Well, let’s hope for… She’s outwatering. Pay no attention to that sound in the background. You’re listening to Today in Ohio. That’s it for the Thursday episode. Thanks, Laura. Thanks, Lisa. Thanks, Leila. Come back Friday to wrap up a week of news. We’ll be talking about the Edmund Fitzgerald.