the Browns push to get the Ohio legislature on board with helping fund a move to Brook Park and the reception for many was warm.

The governor told lawmakers they should finish the job and ban all cell phones in public schools.

And the city of Green's Roundabout Project has been recognized nationally.

Ideas is next.

Hello and welcome to IDEAS.

I'm Mike McIntyre.

Thank you so much for being with us.

The Cleveland Browns for the first time laid out in detail before an Ohio House committee the team's plan to finance a new stadium complex in Brook Park.

The Browns want the state to issue bonds for $600 million to be paid off with proceeds from taxes on the development.

The House seems poised to add it to the budget.

And next, Governor Mike DeWine's plan to double sports gambling taxes to pay for stadiums.

The governor gave his State of the State speech this week and pushed for a total ban on cell phones in schools and a bigger concentration on social studies in the classroom.

After Akron City Council nixed Mayor Shamus Malik's plan to hire a national firm to review police use of force policies, the city may look to the University of Akron to get the job done.

And the City of Green has a bunch of roundabouts to help manage traffic on Massillon Road.

The project has gained national recognition, though there is a debate among drivers about whether traffic lights are better.

Joining me to discuss these and other stories of the week from Ideastream Public Media.

Akron Canton reporter Anna Huntsman and supervising producer of Newscast Glenn Forbes in Columbus.

Statehouse News bureau chief Karen Kasler.

Let's get ready to roundtable The Haslam sports group laid out the case for state funding of a mixed use development in Brook Park.

That would include a dome stadium for the Cleveland Browns.

The team wants the state to approve $600 million in bonds paid off with taxes generated by the project and sought to reassure legislators that the risk to taxpayers would be minimized.

One way to minimize the risk, the team would provide more than $38 million in upfront cash, and it appears to have worked.

The House speaker said he's heard positive things from majority Republican colleagues and it appears the House could add it to the budget being hammered out right now.

Karen, the chief administrative officer and general counsel of the Haslam Sports Group, Ted Taiwan, walked the committee through the team's financing plan.

It looks like the Haslam's were seeking to reassure skeptical legislature legislators that there is minimal risk.

How did they do that?

Well, he said that there is a novel approach here in that typically when you've got an entity that's coming forward looking for financing, say, a sports facility that once financing from a government, it doesn't often offer.

And he couldn't find any evidence of a previous time when upfront cash was offered.

And so in this particular case, they're asking for $600 million in state backed bonds from the state, and they would put up 38 million, $38 million that would grow to about $150 million over the 30 year life of those bonds.

Now, it's important to remember that this is not a cash payment.

The state isn't handing over $600 million in cash to the Browns to build this dome stadium and park and the surrounding development.

But the state is backing those bonds.

The state would have to pay on those bonds every year.

And the whole idea is that there would be enough taxes generated from the Dome stadium and the surrounding development that would cover those costs.

So the state is kind of putting it's leveraging its own financial power out there.

So that the Browns can use that.

And the Browns say they're going to put up this $38 million to kind of guarantee that there are some real questions here about this proposal, even though you're correct in that lawmakers seem pretty receptive.

There were some skeptical questions from some lawmakers.

There was one ranking minority member, Dan TV.

Gerald's called himself a recovering Browns fan.

So, you know, he had some some concerns there.

But, you know, there are some serious questions about what happens if the tax generated is not enough to cover these costs and what happens.

What are the kind of jobs that are going to be created by this whole project?

And who's going to cover the infrastructure costs?

Is that going to be something that's coming later on?

And what if taxes are cut, income taxes are cut, for instance?

What will that affect the jobs and the money that's generated?

Try to pay back these bonds.

All of these are really serious questions.

Ted, Taiwan, the representative of Haslam's sports group, said that the projections would have to be more than 40% off for it to not be able to cover this and that $38.25 million that is being put in, as you said, would grow to 150 million.

Basically, what that is, is we get it back.

If we made the payments and you keep it if we didn't.

So, again, you are talking about these questions and the skeptics.

I think what the question is, did he convince those who might have been on the fence or those who might have already been in favor of this to say this is pretty low risk for the state?

Right.

And that appears to be the case.

It looks like, as you quoted House Speaker Matt Hoffman, he said he'd heard from Republicans in his caucus who are very interested in this idea and even the chair of this committee and this is a new committee, the arts, athletics and tourism committee, that heard this presentation.

The chair is Melanie Miller, who's from Ashland, who's originally from Ballpark, and she said she was very excited about this project, said that publicly and congratulated the Haslam sports group on the presentation.

But again, there are these questions out there when you're talking about $600 million.

Again, not a cash payment, not money that's going directly all at once from the state to the Haslam sports group.

But they're there's that's a lot of money that we're talking about over 30 years.

And what happens if the bonds can't be paid back.

I mean that's the real issue here.

The state is behind these bonds.

If something happens, the state is on the hook to pay those.

Governor Mike DeWine does not favor the borrowing method.

Getting bonds.

In fact, he put forward an idea to double the sports gambling tax in order to pay for stadium improvements and repairs.

In Cleveland and elsewhere in the state.

It looks like the legislature is not going to push through that idea.

Yeah.

When I was communicating yesterday with House Finance Committee chair Brian Stuart, he said that he's not supportive of the three big tax increases that are in Governor Mike DeWine's budget.

The sports, the tax on sports gambling operators, which is at 20%, but double to 40%.

And those proceeds would go into this fund that would support all these stadium projects.

So as DeWine puts it, these groups like the Haslam sports Group would not come to the legislature for cash money.

They would go to this fund for the cash money and then there are two other tax proposals that are in there, the doubling of the marijuana tax from 10% to 20%, and then also an increase of a dollar 50 per cost of cigarets And that money would go to on each pack and that money would go to $1,000 tax credit for kids under age seven.

And so Brian Stewart, the House Finance Committee chair, said it's unlikely that these will go forward.

He doesn't support them.

The rest of his caucus doesn't.

No decisions will be made until after today, which is when House members are required to submit their budget amendments.

But it looks like those are not going to go forward.

And also, I think there has been some skepticism about this fund.

And in general, and maybe that this bond proposal is an idea that they want to go I mean, this bond proposals been out there for a while.

I talked to former state Senator Matt Dolan, of course, a part owner of the Cleveland Guardians, last year about this.

And he said that this was a proposal that has been kind of in discussion.

So this has been talked about with lawmakers for a while, long before this hearing, where it was presented formally.

State law would need to be changed for this deal to work.

I think because of the percentage that the state could contribute to a project like this.

Yeah, I'm a little bit unfamiliar with that.

I think current law says that state law, state funds can used can be used only cover up to 15% of initial construction.

But, you know, this is a project that involves not only the $600 million in state backed bonds potentially, but also you've got $600 million of local funding.

And then the Haslam's themselves are putting, I think, $1.2 billion up for this.

This is a huge project.

And the question was raised in this committee, is this the kind of project that is really just going to shift economic development from downtown Cleveland to Brook Park and not grow any new economic activity of its own?

And I thought that Ted Darling's answer with answer was pretty interesting, where he said that this kind of cannibalization he doesn't think is going to happen and he thinks it's disrespectful to what's happening in downtown Cleveland to assume that that's going to happen, that this is a totally new project and brings in totally new development.

And I thought that was an interesting way to put it.

Governor Mike DeWine didn't break much new ground in his State of the State speech this week, but he did call for a cell phone ban in schools.

he said lawmakers should finish the job by banning cell phones in public schools instead of leaving it up to individual districts.

And he touted social studies classes in schools.

Karen, let's talk about the cell phones in schools.

Many school districts did ban cell phones.

In fact, so much so that I hear people thinking there is a statewide ban, there isn't.

What the law said was that individual districts have to develop a policy.

Many of them just decided to ban.

Some of them restricted.

Some of them are a little bit more loose, he says.

Now it should be a full band.

Why?

Yeah, he last year in his State of the State speech called for school districts to come up with policies not necessarily ban them, but come up with policies on cell phone usage.

He said that the evidence has come in and he called it evidence was overwhelming, saying that it's better if kids do not have cell phones in school.

So he's asking all school districts to ban cell phone usage.

That could be an interesting challenge.

I think there that got a lot of support in the chamber.

But there are parents who are concerned about that.

And as the parent of a recent high school student, there are a lot of kids should be upset about that, too.

But that's part of the the question about this is do kids learn better without having the distraction of cell phones?

Let's talk about some other things.

He wanted a curriculum change.

He wants to see.

He wants students to have social studies in their curriculum at a younger age to help teach reading and writing.

What about that thought?

Well, he's been talking about reading for a while.

In his last budget, he talked about the science of reading, which is a program that is in place in like 40 states now.

And Ohio has it as well.

And he said that that is starting to show some signs of improving reading scores.

And so reading is a big one of his topics.

He talked about the Dolly Parton Imagination Library, which we've heard him talk about really since he took office.

This idea of history as part of an overall curriculum is a big Republican talking point.

It's part of that controversial Senate bill.

One which is the anti I higher education bill that would ban diversity programs in colleges and public colleges and would also ban faculty strikes to fight back on what conservatives say is liberal indoctrination on college campuses.

So that's part of that whole discussion.

But I think one of the most interesting things that he brought up and this was one of the new things I think there were only two new things and this is one of them is he wants to have life skills taught in schools, which is an interesting idea.

I don't know.

I don't know where you fit that into the school day, but it's kind of interesting.

Adulting.

Yeah.

You're talking about making a budget in first aid and learning how to cook basic nutritious meals, things like this.

He said that he's having the director of the Department of Education and Workforce look at the curriculum and recommend how there can be some focus on these basic life skills, which you hear people quite often on Facebook complain that kids aren't learning these things, but kids are also required to learn a whole bunch of other things that state lawmakers have put into place.

Right?

And so you got to fit the life skills stuff in there as well as the stuff they're already required to do.

And of course, the question does become, well, aren't these skills that maybe parents should be teaching their kids as well?

So I think this discussion about life skills is really, really interesting.

Look, I did the best I could, all right?

I didn't teach my son to cook.

I'll tell you that.

I took a class called Adulting one on one in college where they actually talked about some of these different things that we learned about health insurance and benefits at your future employer.

And there was a special lecture on how to fold a fitted sheet.

I mean, our last day we all brought a dip.

We had, you know, because you get invited to things and you have to learn how to cook a dip for a party of dip day.

Yeah.

Anyway, it was actually very valuable and I learned a lot of new things and we also did five year plans.

And so I just wonder about in high school though, as Karen mentioned at the time, do you have time to fit something like that in with all the other standards and things that you got to get to?

Whereas in college, it's kind of like you're about to go off into adulthood and you make a good point about standards too.

They're basically teaching to the test.

The ear teachers talk about.

There's a lot of early history that might be taught, but then you might not get the chance to get that further kind of Ohio history and social studies into a curriculum.

How do you fit all that in if you're also teaching math and reading and some other things?

The governor thinks that if we do that at a younger age, it'll help with the reading.

Be interesting to see that.

Cleveland police will get 3% raises annually for the next three years after the police union reached a labor deal with the city.

Glenn, We don't know a lot about the other details of the contract, but the pay raise structure is big.

And if you put that together with bonuses, they've had and other increases, the police salary has jumped greatly and it needs to, according to the city, because they need to attract and retain police officers.

Yeah, losing officers to suburbs has been a concern because of the, you know, low pay in the past this contract.

What we do know about it and what has been confirmed is calls for 3% raises every year for three years.

So by the end of that in 2027, it will represent about a 34% raise in base pay since 2022.

So if you look at it in that five year span, it's about a 34% increase.

You also have the top officers now will make more than $90,000 per year in 2027.

I think that puts them a little bit below Columbus, but certainly makes them more competitive.

And Mayor Justin Bibb said when he was going out on on road calls in the city, you know, he told reporters that was the number one complaint that he heard.

I suppose that's not a surprise.

But when you look at it in the context of Cleveland, has been short by about anywhere between 203 hundred officers from their budgeted amount.

They felt like they had to do something about this.

And they've they've certainly taken that step.

The police union president loves it, says it's the best contract he's seen in 30 years, got to be approved by council, yet still has to be approved by council.

And council President Blaine Griffin said, well, you know, okay, but I hope Mayor Bibb realizes that every union is going to want this.

Now, every time you go to the negotiating table, they're going to say, why can't we get 3% raises over the next, you know, every year for the next three years?

So there's going to be a little dance here and there.

But most on council, you know, covering these committee meetings, in these council meetings, most on council do see a need for more uniformed police officers and have recognized the need to, you know, recruit and retain, as you mentioned.

Akron residents weighed in on the city's proposed budget, focusing heavily on public safety.

At a forum this week in the Goodyear Heights neighborhood, And it was pretty clear from the forum.

Public safety was the of the day.

Yeah, I was at that meeting and there were four different small group tables and I was trying my best to be at each one so I could hear from as many people.

But every time I go to another table, it just seemed like more people were flocking to the public safety table.

And there was applause and there was just different topics being covered.

But you have this kind of debate of some residents saying we need to focus more investments on the things that keep people from getting to that point of crime.

So things like healthy food, access to food, the social determinants of health, and then other people saying, but we need to still invest in the police department and make sure that they are equipped with everything that they need to do.

So that was a lot of the discussion, but some of the discussion was also about the city's police oversight board.

So in the budget meetings last week, you know, I was listening to council members ask each city department questions, but not too many questions about, you know, why are you raising this?

Why is this happening?

The only department that really got those kind of questions was the police oversight board.

So the budget, they're proposing an increase in their budget.

They wanted to almost double it, but that kind of got cut down by the city's finance department.

They want to have a new case management software for investigating complaints.

They want to hire a data analyst.

But that doesn't seem to have buy in from the city at this point.

And just a couple other different expenses, but that's what they're asking for.

And then you, though, hear some council members say that the whole creation of this oversight board is still a little murky.

They suggest another amendment may be needed.

In order to clarify, the board has been trying to combat some confusion over what its powers are because of, you know, more than 60% of voters voted for this board.

And a lot of people come to the meeting saying, why aren't you doing anything?

Why aren't you do anything?

And the board members say, well, we are doing things.

We just don't have the kind of authority you think we do.

So they don't have the authority to discipline officers.

They can investigate complaints.

That's one of their powers.

The police auditor does that, but he has to wait until the police department does own internal affairs investigation.

Investigation?

So they can't do the investigation.

At the same time, they don't have subpoena power.

They asked for these powers, but city Council rejected their their ask and requests for this.

A lot of that was because the union was threatening that that would be against the collective bargaining agreement.

So they've asked for these powers.

They don't have them.

So they're saying that they are doing the best with what they have.

And so there was some not necessarily heated discussion, but it was definitely robust discussion between this one councilmember Jan Davis, who is saying, why should we fund this board?

That doesn't work.

One resident, Joyce Penfield, who helped craft or she signed onto the amendment, she was saying, you know, wait a minute, what is power?

Community is power.

It does have certain powers.

And she also was saying you have to put subpoena in that word.

They don't have subpoena power.

But she's they do have power.

So a lot of similarities between Akron and Cleveland as we continue to see how oversight boards play out.

One of the other things that's going on and when we talk about the police department is the use of force policy.

There was something you covered closely where they were going to spend a large amount of money in order to bring in an outside firm.

National experts counsel said we don't have the money for that.

Now they're looking at talking with the University of Akron's Department of Criminal Justice Studies.

Correct.

So President Margaret Somerville said that at the very end of Monday's meeting saying we are in talks.

We have had these great conversations with Professor David Lefcourt of the criminal justice chair of the Criminal Justice Studies Program, and he is going to do he could do a review for way less.

I mean, she said 80, I think it was 85 to 95% cheaper.

We still don't know what the cost is.

It's in very early stages.

They're just having these conversations.

But Professor Lefcourt has done these kind of reviews for other police departments.

I know City Council had mentioned, can we do this in Akron?

Why do we need to hire this firm that is, you know, is a national firm, so we don't have any details at this point what the cost would be.

My colleague Abigail Botha spoke with the court and he mentioned that he would review the policies, not just the use of force policy.

He would want to look at some other procedures as well, but we don't really know quite what that would look like yet.

A local group is under contract to buy the iconic Quaker Square property in downtown Akron and plans to renovate the historic structure.

The Beacon Journal, reports it could become a hotel once again.

Do we have other details about who's buying the property?

Yes, we do.

So it's three local business people who have kind of started a new company, I believe, called Ohio River Investments.

And they.

Yes, Ohio River investments to nowhere near the Ohio River.

But.

Okay.

I know.

Very interesting.

Maybe they are I don't know where the Yeah, I don't know where the name comes from, but it's the Ohio River.

Yes.

Okay.

Okay.

It should have been Cuyahoga River investments if you're going to be an actor.

No, I'm just teasing.

Yeah.

So they are going to they're planning to buy the place $800,000.

So this would be turning it back into a hotel.

So these are actually hotel rooms inside the silos that used to have oats.

Every time I'm at that intersection, I kind of look up and I'm like, Wow, that really is so neat to see this this piece of Akron's industrial past.

And they've got little balconies out of each silo.

It's really neat.

There's also the the buildings that used to be shopping and retail and restaurants are still there.

And there's Quaker Station, which is a banquet hall still in use today.

I'm part of the Akron Press Club board.

We used to have our luncheons there.

It's a neat space that's going to need some renovations.

They say the other buildings have been vacant for some time, so those are going to need renovations.

But I don't know.

Mike, did you ever go to Quaker Square?

I've never I've never stayed in the in the in the hotel rooms or anything, but I've wondered the same thing.

Like those are silos.

Yeah.

So I used to go when I was little.

I don't remember it.

I think I was too young, but my mom remembers taking me there.

I was talking to some of our colleagues in the newsroom who went there growing up that they loved to look at the train displays.

There were a bunch of model trains always got to get a fresh oatmeal cookie from Quaker Square.

So I think this is a neat project for folks in Akron who have wanted this space to be something more than just, you know, vacant buildings.

But it has to be approved by the Ohio Controlling Board, which they're supposed to meet April 7th.

And this is obviously it makes sense, too, because it's owned by the University of Akron Universities are in some financial straits.

They're spending a lot of money just to keep upkeep.

And so if you sell it off, you don't have that expense anymore.

You get whatever profit you get from selling it.

That's good for a university Yeah, and it's been for sale for quite some time.

For years.

Yeah, for years.

Yeah.

So it was Yeah.

To see that story come through.

Wow.

They've got a buyer now and so it looks like it's they haven't said yet what they want to do with the other buildings so it'll still be a banquet hall, Quaker station, hotels in the silo or a hotel, I should say, but they haven't released any more details yet.

A new peoples flag was unfurled in Cleveland last week, and it's pretty cool.

The new design was selected through Design and Voting process features a navy blue sea and white six pointed star on a red and Navy background.

It's called the People's Flag because city council didn't adopt it as the city's flag.

The current design has been in use for more than a century, and it is, in a word, boring.

Glenn The new Flag project.

Ordinary organizers said they wanted something that's more cohesive, a civic symbol.

Think about Chicago.

When you go in, every bar has the stars from the Chicago flag flying here.

The flag didn't really translate in that kind of thing.

I've seen it now flying over West 25th Street.

It seems like it's a hit.

Inventory sold out over the weekend.

How about that?

I don't know how much inventory was, but they did sell out.

Part of the proceeds support the Greater Cleveland Food Bank.

But yeah, you mentioned this was created by the people voted on by the people.

So you've got business owners telling our reporters and Abbie Marshall that they're going to display both flags.

So it's kind of an interesting thing.

I didn't know much about the story until Abbie's reporting.

But yeah, people have really seemed to taken to the local designer, too.

And there was a bunch I went on the website and just looked at all these ideas.

Some of them were pretty cool.

Some were like, What?

That's a flag.

But it was kind of neat to have all of these different ideas thrown out there.

And then eventually they settled on what I think is a pretty cool looking flag.

I want one.

And it's very it kind of looks like Cleveland Guardians, right?

It's like the Guardians colors.

It's kind of navy and red.

We get the sea going.

So it's yeah, it's is there's certainly some cohesiveness there.

If you want to start a heated conversation with drivers, bring up this topic.

Roundabouts.

Road planners love them.

Drivers?

Well, it depends either way.

The City of Green in Summit County has a bunch of them and is being nationally recognized with awards.

Six roundabouts on Massillon Road in green.

All are within two and a half miles of each other.

It is a trip to get through there.

And the question is, is it better or is worse?

As I said, traffic planners like it.

I kind of like the way it works.

Some people think it's a little people are too hesitant to get into those.

So I need to do the rundown here.

What do we think of roundabouts, Glenn?

I'm okay with them, but yes, I'm also very hesitant to get into them.

And I'm like, what am I doing?

This is not what I normally do.

Someone help me, okay?

I.

Have you been to Europe anyway?

Go ahead.

I like them as long as everyone in the roundabout is following the rules and knows what they're doing and going in the same direction.

What?

How can you count on?

I can't count on it.

Well, you can't.

You can't count on people stopping at red lights either, I suppose.

Yeah.

My dad works in green and initially didn't like the roundabouts.

Maybe he likes them now.

He likes them now.

He understands their purpose.

Okay, good.

I'm sorry.

I didn't mean to call you out on that.

I just know.

No, that's okay.

That's okay.

Monday on the Sound of Ideas on 80 97w KSU.

We'll talk to local economics professors about President Trump's tariffs and their potential impact both nationally and in Ohio.

I'm Mike McIntyre.

Thank you for watching and stay safe