Subsidies for two aging coal pow Part of HB six will come off your utility bills next week.

Should students get mental healt And a shuttered Warren Hospital is soon to reopen.

Ideas is next.

Hello and welcome to ideas.

I'm Mike McIntyre.

Thank you for joining us.

HB six, the nuclear bailout bill also co subsidies for coal power plants, and ratepayers have forked over hundreds of millions of dollars to prop them up.

That line will be cut next week as the subsidies end, but the Ohio Consumers Council i on the Public Utilities Commissi of Ohio to audit the last two ye and 200 plus million dollars that went to the utilities, where the charges proper, acknowledging that many young pe suffer from anxiety and other me health conditions, and Ohio lawm to introduce for the third time a bill providing mental health d for K through 12 students in Ohi A new crime report in Akron shows a big drop overdose deaths and a reduction in robberies, but an increase in burglaries and a slight bump in shootings and a lifeline for a shuttered W Hospital.

Insight Hospital and Medical Cen Trumbull, closed since March, will reopen within after getting certified the bill for Medicaid and Medicare servic Joining me to discuss those stor and the rest of the week.

Top news from Idea Stream.

Public media education reporter Connor Morris and local government reporter Abby Marshall from Columbus, Karen Ka chief of the Ohio Public Radio and Television Statehouse News B Let's get ready to round table O electric customers will soon stop propping up two coal plants with subsidies tacked on to thei The Public Utilities Commission voted to zero out the charges as of August 14th.

The subsidies were part of the s tainted House Bill six and also nuclear power plants.

Former Ohio House Speaker Larry Householder and fo chairman Matt Burgess were sente to prison for their roles in tha Karen Ohioans collectively had paid quite a bi to subsidize the coal fired plan I know that the nuclear plants got headline billing.

We called it the nuclear bailout but it was also the coal bailout One of them isn't even in Ohio, it's been a lot of money from ra Yeah.

And it gives you a sense of how House Bill six really was.

It wasn't just $1 billion nuclear power plant bail It also bailed out these two coa power plants and made big changes in energy efficiency programs operated by So there was a lot going on in H Bill six, which is why some crit when the whole conviction of Republican former Speaker Larry Householder and Republican party chair Matt Burgess happene that House Bill six would have b just completely repealed and law should have just started all ove But the gradually there have bee that have been repealed, including the repeal of the subs for these two coal fired power p and about it's at least half $1 that they that Ohioans have paid toward these t fired power plants over the year The estimates are somewhere arou you know, 500 and some to $679 million the last two years, $237 So there's a group, the Ohio Consumers Council, that says they want to have an audit of the money that was p its actually an organization cal the Ohio Valley Electric Corpora which is a bunch of these utilit companies.

The money that's been paid to th not all of it since the beginnin which, by the way, preceded HB s HB six codified it, but the money was started to be paid several years before But they want to look at just th two years, which is $237 million What are they looking for?

Yeah, this this coalition, Ovac, which was created to power up th uranium processing plant in sout Ohio in the 1950s.

They built these two coal fired plants to try to provide that el And it's a coalition of utilitie including subsidiaries of AEP, A Electric Power, First Energy, Du all these, electric utilities.

And these plants have lost money for many years.

And so the subsidies were design to get money back for the utilit that were operating them.

And like you just said, it goes back to the Puco order o subsidies was like Public Utilit Commission order was like 2017, but it was codified into, House And so the state agency, the Ohi Consumers Council, along with th Manufacturers Association, who represent some of the bigges utility payers in the state, say they want the last two years of these subsidies paid to these plants, looked int just to make sure that those pay were properly done, that that money actually was used pro And so they they want that before the subsid to have an audit scheduled to look back the last Any idea what happens when the s end to the coal plants close, or do we find out that they coul fine without subsidy?

That's a good question because we found out after the, nuclear power plant subsidy, subsidies were repealed with Hou Bill six after everything that h those subsidies were appealed an the nuclear plants are still in And so it'll be interesting to s happens without these subsidies, as I said, these power plants have lost mon for many years, and these subsidies have helped keep their profits going and hundreds of millions o This is not chump change.

No.

And I mean, when you break it down to all Oh ratepayers, you may not see a huge difference on your bill, but it does make a difference because, like we said, half $1 b over the last ten years, I think are now half $1 billion since 20 and just $237 million in just the last two years.

This money does add up.

Customers have also been paying to support some solar, productio Those are also being ended, but they haven't gotten the same kind of attentio Yeah, I think that that's just t been a lot of attention paid tow the nuclear plants, obviously, b that was the big headline in all And then, of course, these two coal fired plants beca you know, there were questions raised about why coal?

I mean, for a long time, coal was considered an energy that was inefficient and dirty and that sort of thing.

So I think that, you know, the solar, subsidies are somethi that, will be looked at as well.

What's still on the books from H nine?

Well, you've got these energy efficiency programs that utiliti were running that House bill six pretty much And so if you get rid of all of Bill six, then you potentially reinstate or bring back some of those prog These are programs that, that really utilities had said that were not they weren't really a problem, I But there was just this whole id making House Bill six a widespre I mean, there has been an argume that the subsidies were added to House Bill six to to get more for it, because at the time it was pretty controversial.

It was not a party line vote when it actually happened.

You had Republicans and Democrats on both sides of t School kids have sick days and they have sno Should they also get mental heal Senator Willis Blackshear, a Dayton Democrat, has introduce for the third time a bill giving K-Through-12 students up to thre health days per school year.

And, Karen, I think some people could look a and say, oh, it's Ferris Bueller Like a kid can, you know, can fake it and have a But what we're hearing from the, representative or from the senat is that, you know, children are with mental health issues post-p And that's the driving force behind the bill.

I think it's a recognition that a lot of people are struggl with mental health issues, not just since the pandemic, but that's really what kind of b a lot of this forward.

And so the idea of giving kids three basically mental health days that they can without having to go seek the doctor and get treatment and that sort of thing, just days to decompress, take of that could potentially help them some balance.

I mean, there are certainly adul that do this in their workplaces those who have the ability to th there are plenty of people who don't have paid time off, who aren't able to take these th and just kind of reset.

Connor, we've seen chronic absen out of the pandemic.

It's been a concern for administ I wonder if you've heard any rea the idea that there would be thr what some might consider free da or mental health days that are given to students.

Yeah And chronic absenteeism is like missing 10% or more of the school year for a One of the things that you need to be careful about when we're talking about this is any missed school or even like one day, a few days is a pretty serious setback for some students that are alrea And there are a lot of students that are really far behind.

And that chronic absenteeism num is pretty high in Cleveland and It's like almost half of the students in C at Cleveland schools, for exampl And these schools, they're doing whatever they can address this, of course, but it's kind of as many educati are, it's a broader societal iss We've been talking about, you know, mental health, you kno living in poverty, parents not at home necessarily.

So just a lot of other things are kind of coming into p But, it does make sense, though, that the idea is probably, you know, it seems like a positi that they're trying to give these kids breaks.

Right But you hit that, you hit that perfect balance, which is on one You need a mental health break.

So you get on mental health day school.

On the other, it's not just miss It's really setting your educati back in a time when you're seein who are already way behind from the pandemic and haven't ca Yeah, and even before the pandemic as Right.

Karen and I would just add that, you know, that there are ways that schools can work with stude who are struggling.

Because obviously there's a lot of pressure now with bullying and social med even though we are going into a school year where the the effort to eliminate is cell phones in schools, I mean, that was in the budget, and school districts are startin to put that into place, but still that there's a lot of pressure on kids and what this also potentially s is, once again, the difference between the wealthier school dis and the less wealthy school dist Wealthier school districts can o kids the opportunity to learn online and make up work Whereas, you know, if you're in wealthy school district, you may not have that opportunit to do that because you just may not have the equipment at ho So, you know, this is a an opportunity for kid to really take a break and poten relieve some of that stress.

But also it kind of shows the di between the two different experi that kids may have.

Connor.

And it's an interesting thing because schools since the pandem boosted funding for psychologists in the buildings.

That seems reasonable.

Not all schools have this by any Mostly it's the larger city scho so it it's kind of an interestin There are supports in the school So it's like, well, if they go t then they could have access to those supports.

So it's kind of a double edged s Robbery, felonious assault, breaking and entering and auto theft are down in Akron, according to the city's new crim which also shows there has been a slight increase in sh more burglaries and a sharp decrease in overdose A-B use of force incidents, incl including in this report, from police are also down.

Yeah.

And this is just looking at data from the first half of the year.

The police used force 136 times this year as compared to 158 tim last year.

So about 20 or so less instances And when you kind of look at the the trend of crime being down across the board that kind of fo with the rest of the country, post-pandemic, you know, 2020 was one of the most statist one of the most dangerous years for a lot of big cities.

So this kind of follows that tre It's interesting in the context of what we talked about last wee which is that, we see crime in general going do You're getting specifics on where they're going up slightly, where there's a lot of And yet we're having a character of the cities like Akron as bein Right, right, right.

And when you talk about looking and breaking down and seeing whe the city needs to improve or per like, target certain areas of cr rape, burglary, firearm related offense and shootings, are up murders about the same, which is kind of the opposite of what you're seeing in Clevela where murder is going down.

But across the board, violent crime is going down in c despite maybe that characterizat which I think is always kind of been there, you know, people especially that don't go into ci to think that cities are, danger which doesn't that that's kind of reversing over the last few years.

I think what the release of the report s is that Akron's sharing the info and then telling you what they're trying to do about And one specific area is in yout violence.

It remains a priority for the ci What are they doing to address that issue?

Yeah.

So they've done several things t that problem.

This summer, they gave out $100,000 in grants to sports pro They've hosted events for young What you're seeing in a lot of c again, I cover Cleveland, so I have to make that compariso But violence prevention is kind the name of the game.

Here is how can we prevent crime from even happening?

Up here in Cleveland, you know, you see Mayor Justin B having this targeted approach to, crime response and getting guns off the street and things like that.

But you're also seeing a huge in in down in Akron, too, in getting youth involved in thi so that there aren't those idle and they, they don't, you know, perhaps turn to crime in the fut You've seen this happen in Cleve in many cities, Akron specifical not a great relationship sometimes with the community, pa minority communities and the pol And the city said it's worked on repairing that relatio And they touted the work that they've been that they've been doing in this press conference that th Right.

And when you look at a city like where, you had the police killing of Jalen Walker, in rece that trust really has been rattl So I'm sure that that is a very difficult thing t I was down reporting in Akron at that time, and I know that people were really shaken by that.

So they said that they've done more community outreach.

They're working to get more offi out into the community, includin cadets, things like that.

They want to make sure that peop like they have a relationship wi That isn't just we show up, when crime happens, and we're on when the negative stuff happens.

They want to make sure they're i the community for positive thing let's move from police to fire.

Cleveland firefighters will get increase, 21% under a new three year union contract with the city.

Every time I've ever covered a c negotiation, it's like 2%, 3%, 2 and there's a big fight about it and it ends up being not really the firefighters wanted, but they get some sort of raise.

In this case, when I saw 21% ove three years, I thought, man, tha that's a win for the union.

And it certainly means what from It what is it saying by agreeing to a 2,021% pay incr Yeah.

So this kind of comes on the heels of mayor just a bit has been really adama about investing in public safety I kind of mentioned to some of t other targeted approaches through his Rise initiative.

I know that you don't like acron so I'm trying to raising investm and safety for everyone.

But he's saying that these pay i for police, for fire, they started with police a few y With that contract, it's to addr what he calls historically low w Obviously, you're seeing retenti You're seeing attraction issues with getting people to come and be a firefighter or police o in the city of Cleveland.

When you have these suburbs near that are paying more and perhaps are more attractive for people, and you'll have fire and officers leaving for that.

So this is an attempt to not onl people at a higher rate, but also retain people.

So 21% over three years is a very large, jum But Bibb said it was needed, to kind of address those problem And they've done the same thing with police.

Yeah.

I believe three years ago, over the last three years, polic have had a pay raise of about 34 from that contract negotiation.

And Bibb says, you know, now we're moving on to fire.

Again, it's just addressing some of those concerns about pol and making sure we have enough o because we have had a shortage over the last few years.

Which has been a major concern for residents and city council m Cleveland's longest serving council member, the Dean of council, who has rep his Collinwood neighborhood sinc is planning to run for a 13th te But Mike Polasek will have to fa incumbent council member Anthony in the newly drawn Ward ten, which includes Collinwood and the Saint Clair, Superior and Glenville neighborhoods.

It seemed Abby to me that when they were drawing this they said, okay, well, here's on problem solved he's getting to r He says he's going to go that wa We can slide another incumbent i and it'll work.

But, it took a good long time to think about this and then cam and said the will of the people they want me to run.

Blaine Griffin said that he Coun President Blake Griffin said that he was speakin to colleagues about their future to kind of look at, how they're going to draw these and maybe inform those decisions But it was kind of inevitable that maybe 1 or 2 might have to run against each o just because you have 17 people jobs, even if, you know, in some people aren't going to run.

But yes, it was.

Mike pence did He filed before the deadline, which, gave him the option to ru But I think that people didn't think he would, you know, he's i He's been on council forever.

So the I guess idea was maybe he would just bow out and let Anthony Hairston, kind of take that, that seat.

Instead.

He said, I can't walk away from my responsibilities at this There's just too much going on.

And if you watch these council m Mike Pulisic is someone that is very passionate.

He, will he really cares about the Collingwood neighborho He chairs the public safety comm He's very involved.

He does not read like someone th really checked out of public off So, some people might be surpris I personally can see why he's choosing to run again.

And I've heard from some of his who say there's polling out ther and they're very confident.

They think that, you know, with his history and, the, the appeal that he has in Collin that he's looking really good, although this is a new neighborh for him to, to run in.

Yeah.

So that's going to be the challenge is the outreach th But he does have that name recog as someone who has been around for 12 terms, on council.

But it is hard when you're going against an inc and people know that their counc is Anthony Harrison, and it will be also interesting how council leadership, impacts because Blaine Griffin controls what's called the Council Leader which is a PAC that gives money to certain camp And he has said, I cleveland.com that he said he's going to back because that's the promise he had already made.

So Pulisic is going to have to f that battle as well.

Where will I get my quote?

Oh I know, yeah.

Mike obviously well known and I've covered him for, since the beginning, almost to b I'm not quite that old, since since the early 90s, anyway.

And, always good for a quote.

There is more than one ward, though, where there are go two incumbents facing each other In this case, Pulisic wasn't one of those out of favor but they thought he might retire And another Rebecca Moore, who is one of the that's running against Richard S she is one that the council lead has obviously kind of targeted t looked at and said, you're not y following the rules that we have She has accused this process, pr redistricting as gerrymandering, carving out her ward, her curren into a bunch of different pieces And her neighbor or her personal is now in new Ward five.

So that pits her up against Richard Starr of Central She's in Slavic village.

Parts of Slavic Village are in t So that will be an interesting race as well.

And that is the only other one t seeing incumbent versus incumben So it will be interesting.

We will definitely keep our eyes on those races.

We see a primary coming in Septe general, in November.

Not everybody is on the primary Some are just on the general.

Ye So if two candidates have run, filed to just two candidates have filed to run an award, then they will automatically go to the general election in Novem And then that winner will take office in January.

But if in some of these cases, y or 5 people running for the coun that people will go vote for who they want to see on the Nove ballot, and then two will face o So you're only seeing you'll only have to vote in in very wards one, three, five, sev nine and 12.

Not at all confusing.

We have we have it online.

So yeah, go check that out.

A Backers of an effort to codify equal rights protections into th constitution will push for two a after the Ohio ballot Board split their issue into separate They could have challenged that but decided instead to seek separate amendme which means Ohio Equal Rights ha and get petition signed for both of these amendme Right?

Yeah.

And there's two parts here.

According to the state ballot bo And they said voters might have different agreements or different thoughts on both of these parts, that they think that voters should have the opportunity to vote separately on them.

One part would basically overtur the constitutional amendment that says that marriag is between only one man and one The other part would be an anti-discrimination, that would say that you couldn't discriminate as a government entity against a whole long list of different protected grou So the group that, the equal rig that's what they're calling themselves, say anti-discrimination group, had c They could either start over from the beginning and and try to get it into one amend They could do the lawsuit like you mentioned, or they could circulate two peti lawsuits against the ballot boar before the Ohio Supreme Court have not gone well for those who were suing th board over the last couple of ye So I they decided that the time and resources that it would take to take this to the Ohio Supreme Court, where the Republicans on the court, which Republicans dominate, the Court, Republicans dominate the board, that that was not going t So they've gone with the two petition solution.

They're they're aiming for 2026 for the ballot.

That's that's going to be pretty ambiti It is.

I mean, when you start to think how you have to collect 414,000 signatures appro that's valid.

So you have to go even beyond th maybe collect almost as many as as many signatures.

And you have to do that on two separate petitions.

This is a lot of work.

And so you've got a couple of gr that are out there trying to do that right now.

But to have two issues that you have to circulate and, all the rules to collect signatu for two is is really a challenge And then if you do get the signa and you get onto the ballot, you have to convince people to vote for it.

One of the two closed hospitals in Warren is on to be reopened within a few week according to Insight Health Syst which took over the properties after the original owner, Stewar Health System, filed for bankrup The hospitals have been closed since March.

Abbie.

What changed?

Why is the reopening something you're talking about n So they recently got a license that would allow the hospital to bill patients that have Medicare and Medicaid.

So that's that's the primary cha they're going to be able to get this going.

The restart will come in phases Yeah.

So it'll start by reopening its room, then radiology department, laboratory, pharmacy and inpatient services.

They were really harsh.

In, there was a press conference that led to this that our, that we had covered, and I it it sounds to me like they were really upset with Health Systems because they real them behind the eight ball.

Their billing, they were in control of the bill And there was all kinds of probl that that the new owners didn't and immediately had to close.

Yeah.

And when you talk about having a in a health system, it's not you it's horrible when like a restau or something closes in your neig But when you talk about a hospit like that's pretty damaging to the public health there.

And also just trust that people So, they're they're really havin as you said, catch up on what's going on and that this is a sustainable thing They're not making any promises they'll be able to stay open ind but they're hopeful that it will And our Taylor Wizner will be covering t And one other thought is that when they open, will there Will people come back to the job they were in tonight?

I saw that the the union members there were concerned because the instead bring in visiting nurses Those types of things in the num of jobs won't be as they were be Yeah.

And as I just mentioned, they're not making any promises staying open as a long term thin But they are hopeful that by add in the county, kind of across that county, that will have more of a demand for h that will make the hospital more going forward for those long ter What about the rehabilitation hospital?

Yeah.

So they're working to reopen the other closed hospital, but they're seeing delays in app So the goal is to have it open, but it is delayed.

Monday on The Sound of Ideas on KSU coordinating producer Drew Macias is in the host chair and explores the racial disparit in organ donation and transplant I'm Mike McIntyre.

Thank you so much for watching and stay safe.