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CLEVELAND, Ohio - Sen. Bernie Moreno just admitted he’s been collecting his Democratic colleagues’ car VIN numbers — and the fallout was every bit as bizarre and creepy as it sounds. We’re talking about Moreno’s eyebrow-raising stunt, the privacy backlash it sparked and what it says about his brand of politics 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: Are we getting into a neighborhood where Bernie Moreno has a weekly scandal? Not a week after he was humiliated in his false claims about Mentor schools – claims where the elected official was viciously attacking his own constituent –he’s managed to offend his colleagues with what they call creepy behavior. What is it this time? Cleveland schools shook the earth Wednesday night with its announcement that it wants to close 23 school buildings and consolidate others. It’s unprecedented. Is any part of the city untouched? What are some of the more notable schools that would close? The last time Cleveland talked about multiple school closings, the community erupted, and City Council members howled. What is the reaction so far this time? How bad does adult behavior have to be for a city to close down its Pickleball courts through the end of the year? Just ask Rocky River. What do we know? We thought the dispute between Cuyahoga County Executive Chris Ronayne and prosecutor Mike O’Malley ended with an attorney general opinion that said the prosecutor has sole authority over the county’s civil legal matters. Instead, the dispute has gotten nasty. Where do they disagree? We’ve got another Northeast Ohio company shutting down and ending hundreds of jobs. Who is it, and why is it closing? People of a certain age remember the frightening studies that said women entering menopause should not get estrogen therapy because it could result in breast cancer. As seems to happen often with medical advice, has everything changed again? People cannot be tried for crimes if they are not competent to understand the proceedings, something that has impeded murder cases. Mental health treatment can help restore competency. But it takes time. What does Ohio Attorney General think should happen so that murder defendants don’t get away with the crimes? That frightening shooting scene we discussed this week at an AirBnB mansion party in Bath Twp. Cost someone his life. What does his mom say about that? More Today in Ohio Cuyahoga County budget is built on quicksand—and sheriff’s office is sounding the alarm Is Emilia Sykes right that GOP arrogance could cost them Ohio seats in Congress? The secretive billionaire network that put JD Vance in power wants to end American democracy We have an Apple podcasts channel exclusively for this podcast. Subscribe here. Do you get your podcasts on Spotify? Find us here. Radio Public is another popular podcast vehicle, and we are here. On Pod Paradise, 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 Quinn (00:01.062) Like I said yesterday, we will be talking today about the massive plan to close Cleveland schools. Sean McDonald has put together all sorts of great information to discuss. It’s Today in Ohio, the news podcast discussion from cleveland.com and the Plain Dealer. I’m Chris Quinton here today with Courtney Astolfi, Lisa Garvin, and Leila Tasi. Before we get to the schools, Lisa, are we getting into a neighborhood where Bernie Marino has a weekly scandal? Not a week after he was humiliated in his false claims about mentor schools, claims where, mind you, an elected official was viciously attacking his own constituent, he’s managed to offend his colleagues with what they call creepy behavior. What did he do this time? Lisa Garvin (00:47.337) So this happened in a discussion during the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee hearing in which Senator Bernie Moreno said that he collected the vehicle identification numbers of his Democratic colleagues vehicles purportedly to see if they bought the optional safety features that they want to mandate in Congress. And he said none of them bought the added features. And he says that’s to blame for the rise in car prices recently. But Democratic and Nevada Senator Jackie Rosen clapped back. She says, it’s violating our privacy. It seems just a little bit creepy. And she even asked, how did you get the vins in the first place and what are you going to do with them? And she objected to, you know, him stalking her car and her staff just to get those vins. And Moreno said, well, I’m exposing your hypocrisy. And then he went to a different subject and said that Senate. Democrats are voting against the Republican plan to reopen the government. During that meeting, he also asked the Assistant Secretary of Transportation nominee, Daniel Edwards, about visiting Burke Lakefront Airport to discuss its closure. And Edwards says, well, when the time is appropriate, I would be happy to support. Chris Quinn (01:58.056) Moreno doesn’t want that airport closed because personally he uses it. Look, let’s put this into perspective, right? Sherrod Brown was a senator for years and years and years and years. And I don’t think once he did anything like skulk around some garage with a cell phone or a notepad getting VIN numbers. what is what is he’s a clown. This is so embarrassing. What what is he thinking he’s doing? skulking around and doing it. I’m surprised that security didn’t come after him because that is such a creepy thing to do. Day after day, week after week, this guy embarrasses Ohio like no other senator in history. This is what Ohio went with over Sherrod Brown. He really should be required to wear a big red nose whenever he’s in the building. Lisa Garvin (02:47.339) Well, and the Senator Rosen, who, you know, raised the, she says, I don’t even drive my own car. It’s in Nevada. How did you get the VIN of my car in Nevada? But, you know, and he’s a car salesman, so he’s, and you know, he’s done a lot of car and vehicle friendly legislation since he’s become Senator. I don’t know that any of it’s passed, but it’s interesting how he’s protecting the business that he allegedly let go of. Chris Quinn (03:10.222) what’s next going to their homes and looking at the mailbox to see what’s in their mailbox and this is way beyond the behavior of a senator this is the most exclusive club in politics right 50 people there are 100 people in the Senate very powerful group it’s supposed to be August and we got a guy creeping around getting the numbers so he can try to embarrass his colleagues with gotchas it’s shameful it’s just shameful and coming a week after what he did in mentor. It’s just embarrassing that this guy represents Ohio. You’re listening to Today in Ohio. Okay, Cleveland School shook the earth Wednesday night, Layla, with its announcement that it wants to close 23 school buildings and consolidate all a lot of others. It’s unprecedented. Is any part of the city untouched? And what are some of the more notable schools that will close? We’ll get to the reaction after we go through this. Leila (03:57.874) you Leila (04:05.586) Yeah, Chris, this closure represents almost half of CMSD’s current footprint, and they’d also be consolidating others into larger campuses. If the board approves this next month, it would be the district’s biggest overhaul in decades, taking effect before the next or the 26, 27 school year. So the driving force here is enrollment. CMSD has just 34,000 students today, down from 70,000 in 2000. CEO Warren Morgan says the district just can’t afford to maintain buildings designed for twice as many kids. So the closures and mergers are expected to save about $30 million a year, mostly by cutting administrative jobs like principals and assistant principals. Though Morgan says most teaching jobs will stay, depending on which, that they would be moved to different facilities and things like that. And you asked if any part of the city is untouched. Not really. The plan really touches neighborhoods all across Cleveland from Collinwood to Glenville to Tremont. Some of the more notable changes, Collinwood High School would merge into Glenville. Campus International High School would move into John Hay and MC Squared STEM would merge with East Tech. Among K through eight schools, names like Mary B. Hardin or Mary B. Martin, Charles Dickens and Waverly would all consolidate into nearby schools. Morgan insists that these are that they’re not just closures, but mergers, meaning that entire school communities would move together into better maintained buildings with more programs and extracurriculars. Still, I mean, you know, it’s an emotional moment for people, especially people who are tied to legacy schools like Collinwood. Chris Quinn (05:44.92) Well, Courtney’s going to take us through some of the official reaction in a minute. what I’m surprised at here, this looks like a good plan. They have to do this. They’re overbuilt by double. But, we talked to them about this in the spring, they did not bring in the community on this. And I get it. It’s going to be scandalous. Everybody cares about their school. But the people do pay a lot of money for these schools. And they do feel Leila (05:47.025) Yeah. Leila (05:53.573) Yeah. Chris Quinn (06:13.792) invested in them and I’m just surprised they they unveiled this Wednesday plan to pass it in a month without really doing the big dance and allowing people to be heard on the way there. I remember the last time this went down. It was actually a school construction plan the state put tons of money into building new schools but that came with consolidations and it was a nightmare every everybody was up in arms. People should have the right to be heard. And I think they might have blown it by giving too small a window. I love the way they did it. It seems like they were very methodical. I also had no idea that we had four or three and four high schools in the same building, each with separate administrations. I knew we had created these specialty high schools, but I didn’t realize they all had principals and all the extra foo-for-all. Of course, that’s a silly thing. Leila (07:06.876) Right. Yeah, right. That should have probably been a consideration in past budgets, I think, is how to save money with that kind of overlapping duties and things like that. But yeah, I hadn’t realized how many schools were already coexisting on the same campus, and each of them has their own identity. mean, you’ve got schools with very specialized focuses. But I agree with you, Chris. It’s really striking how top down this all feels. Families and teachers kind of woke up to learn that their schools might vanish. And the district says it’s been doing public engagement, but clearly that didn’t reach the people who really matter here. When you’re closing neighborhood schools, these are places that generations have passed through. You can’t just present a finished plan. You have to start with the community and listen and build trust before asking families to just uproot. Chris Quinn (07:46.08) Yeah. Chris Quinn (08:02.424) Look, he said, he told us when they presented this, because we said, when you hold these hearings, are you open to any change? And he said, I’m open to hearing from people how they can save more money than we’re saving. But if you would have done that six months ago, look, we don’t have a final plan yet, but every school in this city could close. Just letting you know, we’re looking at it. If you have ideas that might help us come talk to us because we have to get this done. At least you get something, this, you’re right, they woke up and this is what they see. I just, think there’s going to be a whole lot of ill will. So, so now let’s, let’s move on to part two. Courtney, the community did erupt last time this happened and city council members who were the loudest. What is the reaction so far this time? Lisa Garvin (08:40.651) Thank Courtney (08:50.387) Yeah, some key folks here, they are reeling. We’re talking council folks. We’re also talking the head of the teachers union who’s concerned about families scrambling with this last minute info. So, you know, we heard from Sherry Obranski, she’s the longtime head of the union. And she said, you know, the devil’s basically in the details. This plan doesn’t roll out, you know, what it’s going to do with the buildings, it’s going to close, but then like on stuff that’s going to impact families. start times at different schools and things that will impact how families decide how they’re going to proceed given this changing landscape. She said there’s just, I mean, they’re rushing through this vote. There’s little time for families to really grasp those details, how it will impact them. And she also points out exactly what you two are saying. If parents, if teachers, if anyone has any issues with this plan, this leaves really no ability for them to go to the school board. and explore how they can come to a consensus. It’s just rocketing through. And we also heard kind of similar things from the longtime council people who represent Glenville and Collinwood, Kevin Conwell and Mike Polenzek. They feel like this is like a foregone conclusion that, and they also feel like this is a self-fulfilling prophecy. They argue that, you know, weak extracurricular programs and years of underinvestment at these schools drove down enrollment, which is then leading to them to consolidate. I mean, there’s a lot of different prongs here and people are, I think it’s fair to say, really. Chris Quinn (10:21.57) Yeah. Chris Quinn (10:26.062) I’m throwing the flag on Collinwood because I don’t think anybody else in this podcast or remember this, but sometime in the years before the pandemic, maybe it’s 2017, maybe it’s 2018, Eric Gordon wanted to close Collinwood and Mike Polancic brought in a bunch of community members and made the case to us that it should stay open and promised, promised to help support it so that it would continue to thrive. And I don’t think that’s happened. It should have closed seven, eight years ago and it certainly should close now. They don’t have the people to support it. What I wish would happen here, the council people should look out for the city as the whole and acknowledge this, a lot of schools needs to close and lead, right? So if Collinwood is going to close and it’s going to, And Mike Polancik, as the longtime representative of that area, should figure out another use for that building and start working toward that and tell the community it’s going to be okay. Because everybody’s right. If the school goes down and there’s nothing there, it becomes a real sink for the neighborhood. mean, schools are the center of a lot of neighborhood activity. But if they just sit there closed and vacant, they become a big problem. Lisa Garvin (11:41.941) Well, he did talk about having a closing plan when he talked to the, they’re working on the closing plan when he talked to us last week at the editorial board. But I have to say, I think Dr. Morgan, you just have to rip the bandaid off. I really do. I mean, I understand where you want people to vent their feelings about it, but it’s not going to change anything. And it just drags out the process. So I kind of applaud him for just ripping that bandaid off. Courtney (12:06.025) And Mayor Bibb kind of nodded at that kind of thought. Like he, you know, he said this is going to be politically tough, but it’s the right thing to do. So they got to just, but he didn’t say it in those words, but I’m taking it as rip the band-aid off and move forward with it. Chris Quinn (12:22.272) Yeah, I just I think because people are so invested in their schools, they will have wanted time to to get used to it. I think this is so abrupt that it’s going to cause outrage. think it’s interesting they waited until a day after the election to to do this, because if this had happened during the city council elections, it would have become a big factor in those races. So they took some of the politics out that way. But we’ll see. I expect there’s going to be quite a bit of fighting. I expect the the council president will bring in the the schools for Hearings and individual council members will be able to raise holy hell about it I’m not sure what the point is for a bunch of public hearings now when they’re saying up front that it’s not gonna change anything I mean if you’re getting the public together, I guess it’s just to share with them what we’re doing but Don’t say anything because we’re not gonna listen to you. Yes, no. Courtney (13:22.295) That’s what it feels like to me. mean, they’re charging through. It’s a painful move. It has to be done in their eyes. So why bog it down? mean, people are, people are going to be upset. Just barrel through that process is how I’m reading their moves. Lisa Garvin (13:36.085) Mm-hmm. Chris Quinn (13:36.194) Did you see the letter that ran today in the Plain Dealer by Justin Bibb that was signed by half the people in the city? It’s a huge list of influential people that are standing behind what Morgan is doing here. So there is some support for it. Courtney (13:53.319) And, and Bibb acknowledges here straight up, like he knows he’s gonna need to convince a skeptical public to some degree. Leila (14:00.784) do think though, just to kind of return to what Chris said initially, this is a very thoughtful plan, especially how they’re keeping students together. mean, you might be moving a school into another school, but those students, if they want to remain part of that school, they’ll be together. And they’ve put a lot of thought into how to minimize the pain that comes along with a plan like this. And I appreciate that. Lisa Garvin (14:06.463) Mm-hmm. Chris Quinn (14:06.797) Yeah. Chris Quinn (14:26.466) Yeah, absolutely. I think the plan is a good plan. And I really wish that the council members that want to make political hay out of it would do the right thing and lead their communities forward with this plan. I think that’s the healthy thing to do because the city absolutely has to do it. I just don’t think they will. You’re listening to Today in Ohio. How bad does adult behavior have to get, Lisa, for a city to close down its pickleball courts? through the end of the year. Just ask Rocky River, what do we know here? Lisa Garvin (15:00.663) I wish we knew more we really don’t know why they did it there well they said they’re canceling pickleball at the recreational center until the end of this year because of bad behavior from players recreational director bob holland didn’t elaborate though he did say though that players were arguing about rules and about points and he said we don’t have organized teams or leagues at our center so this is happening during what he calls multi-generational drop in games. So they’re taking this pause to figure out how to communicate, you know, the game rules to players and then they’ll be back in 2026. The players of course are not happy. Pickleballers can be prickly people. They post on, you know, they posted on the Instagram page for Rocky River. Why cancel the whole program for just a few bad actors? Just ban those bad people. And then someone even said, I’m losing my whole self, you know, in pickleball. So. Chris Quinn (15:51.724) You Lisa Garvin (15:53.739) why did you just go and cancel? But know, pickleball and my brother plays him stolen. He’s been a pickle baller for like a decade now. And he’s told me scary stories about what went on down there when people disagreed. So I’d love to know some specific incidences here, but you know, 19 million adults played pickleball in the U S last year. That’s a 311 % increase from just two years earlier. Chris Quinn (16:18.22) What is there to dispute? they disputing, you know, the ball is outside the line or something? Lisa Garvin (16:23.691) We don’t know. They’re not telling us. You know, I do not... Huh? Chris Quinn (16:26.57) I just don’t... but when your brother was talking about what he saw in Solon, did he talk about what they specifically would fight about? Lisa Garvin (16:33.983) Well, a lot of it because the courts are so crowded, you know, and I guess they use a system where you put your paddles up somewhere to show that you’re next in line. And he said that somebody came in and tried to just walk on a court and they explained it to him and he ripped all the paddles off the wall. They had to call the police and you know, so yeah, I wished I had some details here. Chris Quinn (16:37.714) Leila (16:55.142) My understanding about this though, in talking to reporter Corey Schaefer is that this really was about a mis- or a miscommunication or misunderstanding of the rules of pickleball. So that they were disagreeing about what certain rules say, not necessarily the etiquette of pickleball. So that’s why the rec center is going to try to educate people about how to play pickleball by the actual rules and that they hope that that’ll clear up a lot of the confusion and Chris Quinn (17:11.982) You Lisa Garvin (17:24.491) Mm-hmm. Leila (17:24.828) turmoil. Chris Quinn (17:26.818) Think about the imagery for children, right? Your children go to the rec center too, and you have adults that are misbehaving so badly that the city just says, forget it, get out, we’re not gonna do it for a couple of months. This is terrible. It’s just that... Leila (17:43.268) Yeah, when we first heard about this, we thought for sure it was like rowdy teens, you know, and then we find out it’s adults. Chris Quinn (17:47.905) You Lisa Garvin (17:48.713) Mm. Chris Quinn (17:51.178) Yeah, it’s shameful, The adults should be setting an example for the kids and instead the kids are probably playing with civility. They could teach the adults a few things. Lisa Garvin (18:00.381) Well, it’s interesting that he said multi-generational because Pickleball really started out as for senior citizens and now you’re getting a lot of young people into the game and I wonder if there’s a generational clash there too. Chris Quinn (18:13.622) I, you know, I’ve wanted to play it. I played a lot of tennis when I was younger. Finally had to stop because of what it was doing to my knee. And I’ve been interested in pickleball, but I don’t know now if this is what you get as a bunch of people that are bickering. How is that fun? You’re listening to Today in Ohio. We thought the dispute between Cuyahoga County executive Chris Ronane and prosecutor Mike O’Malley ended with an attorney general’s opinion that said the prosecutor. has sole authority over the county’s civil legal matters. Instead, this dispute has gotten quite nasty, Leila. Where do they disagree? Leila (18:51.302) Well, O’Malley says Yost’s opinion means that his office alone should handle all the county’s legal work. That’s drafting contracts, advising departments, everything. County Executive Chris Ronane, however, disagrees and says that the county charter clearly creates a law department to do that work for the executive branch. And he wants to preserve the current setup and even suggested putting the question to voters if the two men can’t agree on this. So things escalated fast. O’Malley sent an email threatening to quote, bring the county into compliance if Ronane didn’t hand over duties within a week. And then Ronane fired back an email accusing him of making legal threats and trying to unravel 15 years of cooperation. And now both sides are accusing each other of wasting taxpayer money and breaking faith with the charter. So at its core, this is really a very big power struggle and it’s a personality clash over who’s the county’s true lawyer here. O’Malley’s framing it as a question of ethics and independence, saying that the law department can’t be impartial because it reports to Ronane. And the administration calls that nonsense and says that their attorneys handle thousands of contracts and public records requests every year without issue. So nobody has sued yet, but you get the sense that it’s heading that direction. Short of a court fight, it may take a charter amendment after all, or a serious sit down face to face to finally draw the line here. Chris Quinn (20:13.388) But Yost’s opinion was crystal clear. I mean, he said that because the charter did not address this, that the prosecutor keeps this duty. The danger here, I’m not sure that if Ronane got that under the ballot, it would pass. And in the meantime, O’Malley is part of the group that is trying to abolish the charter altogether, which would end the law department in its form. I think this is going to get nastier and nastier and it’s going to happen in a year when Chris Ronane is up for re-election, which adds another wrinkle to it. Ugly business. Ugly, ugly business. Leila (20:49.158) Yeah, I kind of want to point out some, an aspect of the story that I find obnoxious, which is that a lot of it seems to boil down to money, you know, not, not necessarily what’s, what’s best for taxpayers. That’s like the varnish on it, but beneath it, we’re talking about money. Both offices are arguing over whose lawyers get to handle contracts and by extension, whose budgets and salaries get to grow here while pretending that it’s about these checks and balances. If the fight’s really about, you know, turf instead of efficiency and service, I find that really petty. I the county has real problems to solve and you’ve got here two grown men in power who shouldn’t be squabbling over who gets to bill for legal work. mean, we’ve got, know, O’Malley’s office made a big stink about how those attorneys are not paid as much as the county’s attorneys. Is that what we’re fighting over? Is that really at the heart of this? That’s obnoxious to me. Chris Quinn (21:44.674) Well, what’s interesting is when we started on this story, we thought it was just going to be a transition story. And the deeper that our reporters got into it, the more we kind of opened the can of worms and saw how ugly this has become. So yeah, we’ll be writing about it again, I’m sure. You’re listening to Today in Ohio. We’ve got another Northeast Ohio company shutting down and ending hundreds of jobs. Who is it, Courtney? And why is it closing? Courtney (22:13.333) Yeah, we’re talking about a global payment technology company that operates down in Summit County. And beginning at the end of January, that’s 240 jobs gone. This company has been based in Germany since the mid 19th century. It’s got lots of locations around the globe. It’s called, excuse my pronunciation, Gzecki De Vrient ePayments America. And this Twinsburg outpost for this company is going away. The company cited limits in the size and infrastructure of its site down there on Enterprise Parkway as the main reason for its shutdown, which is interesting. I’ve never really heard that explicitly as a reason for a company to close, but we know that this is going to kind of unfold in phases through the end of next year. And they’re describing it as also part of a broader plan to kind of streamline their operations. Chris Quinn (23:08.152) Nobody said it, but what struck me about this is these are the kinds of jobs that I think AI is increasingly assuming. And I wondered if that had played a role in this. Nobody said that it did, but we do know a lot of white collar jobs are going to dissolve to AI. Courtney (23:24.471) 240 jobs isn’t something to sneeze at. know, these folks will get notification, unemployment guidance and everything, but that’s a good figure of folks losing their livelihoods. Chris Quinn (23:35.854) You’re listening to Today in Ohio. People of a certain age remember the frightening studies a couple of decades ago that said women entering menopause should not get estrogen therapy because it could result in breast cancer. Lisa, it seems to happen often with medical advice as everything changed again. Lisa Garvin (23:53.309) Yeah, boy, it’s changed a few times since I entered menopause, that’s for sure. There’s a study out of Case Western Reserve University that indicates that pre-menopausal women who took estrogen before menopause set in had no significantly higher risk of breast cancer, heart attacks, or strokes than those who started the therapy after menopause set in, or not at all. So they analyzed data from 120 million patient records. That’s the largest ever data set using real world patient data. So Dr. Rachel Pope, who’s part of this study, she’s also my doctor. She’s a menopause certified practitioner at university hospitals. She says, we know it’s safest to start hormone replacement therapy within the first 10 years of menopause onset, but they really wanted to see if it’s safe to start during perimenopause, which is that transitional period when a lot of women’s symptoms start, like hot flashes and so forth. She said the lack of data on long-term outcomes of starting early is part of the problem, but they hope to remedy that. And she said that perimenopause, a lot of people do get affected and perimenopause can kind of drag on for a couple of years for some. Chris Quinn (25:09.368) What throws me on this though is so much of the breast cancer push of the last, I don’t know, 20 years has been about reducing estrogen because it was just seen as that’s the cause. And all of a sudden now, not? I’m just thrown by how radically different this is from the advice, and you know this, you’ve worked in the medical field. Lisa Garvin (25:18.474) Yes. Lisa Garvin (25:31.945) Yeah, but I think we’ve learned a lot about breast cancer. There are breast cancers that are hormone positive. So there are certain cancers that are affected by the amount of estrogen and progesterone in your body. So I think that they’re saying, well, they were using a blanket approach to cover everybody, even though it of affected a certain subset of people. But I don’t know if this is still true, but some doctors will say, you... You really should not have hormone replacement therapy unless you really have bad symptoms or feel you need it. If you feel you can avoid it, it’s better if you do. I don’t know if that wisdom is still there. Leila (26:05.195) I don’t think that’s the... No, I think it’s a pretty commonly... I think it’s been debunked a lot of the... I mean, this is the biggest issue among my cohort of friends right now. And what I’ve been told is that estrogen along with progesterone together can reduce the risk of certain cancers. So it’s the combination of hormones that actually has an insulating effect. Lisa Garvin (26:11.563) Mm-hmm. Lisa Garvin (26:28.032) Mm-hmm. Leila (26:32.978) But the thinking around this has completely changed. And thank God, and thank God really, because I’ve seen friends who are just debilitated by some perimenopausal symptoms and their lives are dramatically improved by having hormone replacement therapy at this age. Lisa Garvin (26:37.173) Mm-hmm. Again. Chris Quinn (26:37.41) again. Chris Quinn (26:53.88) Fascinating. It’s just, it’s always interesting how it turns so radically. You’re listening to Today in Ohio. People cannot be tried for crimes if they are not competent to understand the proceedings, something that has impeded murder cases. Mental health treatment can help restore that competency, but it takes time. What does Attorney General Dave Yost think should happen so that murder defendants don’t get away with the crimes because they’re not competent? Layla. Leila (27:22.438) Well, so under current Ohio law courts only get one year to try to restore someone’s competency through mental health treatment. And if they can’t do it in that time, charges often have to be dropped even in some serious cases. So Yoast is backing a new bill that would extend that window to five years for murder and aggravated murder. It’s a direct response to the case of Delonte Hardy. He’s the man who was accused of killing Cleveland police officer Jamison Ritter and his grandmother last year. Hardy was found incompetent and sent to a psychiatric hospital, but he refused medications for months. And because that time counted against the one year limit, prosecutors worried that he’d run out of run out the clock and never face trial. The bill would also require hospitals to tell courts within two weeks if a defendant refuses medication and would pause the clock in those cases. So defendants can’t stall their own trials by refusing treatment. And Yo says this is about closing loopholes so people accused of the worst crimes don’t, know, quote, slip through the cracks. But critics, including mental health experts, warn that stretching the timeline to five years could blur the line between medical care and punishment and may even spark new legal fights over forcing medication on people. Still, with the Ritter case front and center, there’s strong pressure on lawmakers to act quickly. Chris Quinn (28:46.466) Yeah, this is a bad loophole. mean, by refusing medicine and running out the clock, you never get justice. And if they’re on the medicine, they can face their their accusers and go to trial. I this case has been troubling all along because one, the communication has been terrible about the fact that he was not taking his medicine, but to that he might get away with it. Leila (29:14.682) Yeah, I mean, it’s understandable that prosecutors want more time. No one wants to see a murder suspect avoid trial because of a technicality like that. But I can see that there’s real tension here between justice and civil rights too. Chris Quinn (29:22.904) Right. Chris Quinn (29:28.898) You’re listening to Today in Ohio. That frightening shooting scene we discussed this week at an Airbnb mansion party in Bath Township has now cost somebody his life. What does his mom say about that, Courtney? Courtney (29:40.745) Yeah, Alicia Wells is the mother of 18 year old Elijah Wells who died this week. He was one of eight folks shot in that incident. All but two now have been released from the hospital. But Alicia Wells, his mother, she’s heartbroken, but she’s also looking for accountability here. We learned that she’s retained attorney Peter Patakos, and she wants some accountability here, not just from the property owner. and not just from the shooters who haven’t been arrested or identified yet, but she also wants accountability from Airbnb. And of course we know this is a longstanding issue with these, with, you know, violence popping up at these mansion parties and short-term rentals. And Patakos zeroed in on that when they made their statements this week. He said that for Airbnb and similar platforms, not to take action, it speaks to their liability here. So we’ll have to see where this goes and what court action could potentially be coming out of this. But you know, there is a gap here in Bath Township. is a ban on short-term rentals. It’s a zoning thing. It’s not a police criminal thing. And that has left authorities with little tools to get ahead of this. I’m really curious to see what, if any legal strategy Ms. Wells and her attorney could take against Airbnb in this kind of situation. Chris Quinn (31:08.364) Well, I mean, the owner of the house is going to have a vulnerability here because it is prohibited and the action of running it this way led to somebody’s death. But I would be fascinated if they could get a case that sets a precedent that Airbnb is on the hook for being a participant in what was an illegal act, because if Airbnb put in some restrictions to stop this kind of thing. you could probably get it reduced. keep seeing it over and over again. These huge house parties at Airbnb rentals and Airbnb just shrugs and says, well, it’s not our fault. I would love to see a civil case give them some liability. Courtney (31:50.327) Yeah, this $1.2 million house, it’s owned by Shawna Gardner. It’s worth noting that police have said she’s been fully cooperating with this investigation. But yeah, I mean, how do you get Airbnb to know what every municipality in America’s rules are? You know what bath townships rules are and then enforce it and remove listings? Surely it’s possible, but that’s a big effort. It could require a lot of money. I’m sure it eats into their profit margins. I’m just... That’s a lot of coordination. they force it here for a national, international company like this? Chris Quinn (32:26.67) All right, you’re listening to Today in Ohio. That’s it for a week of news. Thanks Courtney. Thanks Lisa. Thanks Layla. Thank you for being here. We will return Monday with another discussion about the news.
