A construction permit for the new Brown Stadium is denied.

What comes next for the project?

Governor DeWine.

Sends Ohio National Guard troops to D.C. and Senator Bernie Marino gets a raucous reception at the City Club of Cleveland, ideas is next.

Hello, and welcome to ideas.

I'm Andrew Meier in for Mike McIntyre.

Thanks for joining us.

The Haslam Sports Group has encountered another hurdle in its effort to build a new covered stadium and move the Browns from their current lakefront home to Brook Park.

The Ohio Department of Transportation denied the project a construction permit due to concerns raised over the current design height, with Hopkins Airport sitting next door.

We'll discuss where the stadium project stands.

A serving Republican Ohio Supreme Court justice has abandoned plans to try a midterm challenge and take the seat of Justice Jennifer Bruner, the only statewide elected Democrat in Ohio.

The move by justice Pat Fisher was met with criticism from both parties.

Ohio Governor Mike DeWine has dispatched National Guard troops to Washington, D.C., and Senator Bernie Marino held a public forum at the City Club of Cleveland this week and was met with protesters outside the venue and a boisterous crowd inside.

Joining me for the roundtable this week, we have in studio from Ideo stream public media reporter Gabriel Kramer and from news five Cleveland reporter Michelle Jarboe.

In Columbus, we have Statehouse News Bureau chief Karen Kasler.

Let's get ready to roundtable.

The Ohio Department of Transportation this month denied a construction permit for a Brooke Park Stadium after Cleveland's top airport officials said the current design would permanently and negatively impact the airspace at Hopkins International Airport.

Michele, you've been on this story and have looked at the letters.

What were the complaints from airport officials?

So the primary concerns here seem to center on two things.

The idea that the height of the stadium development out there could impact approach minimums for pilots, causing them to have to go up further in the air and then it could interfere with these safety zones around the East-West runway there at Hopkins.

So there there are two North-South ish runways there, but then there's an east west runway that runs roughly parallel to Brook Park Road, and it's not directly in line with the proposed stadium, but the way, a pilot I talked to explain this to me.

It is in an area where if you are taking off and landing and you have to turn, there could be a possibility of a collision and that that's what Hopkins airport officials are saying.

But of course, that contradicts what the FAA decided.

All right.

So, Karen, state leaders have been largely behind this stadium project.

Was it surprising that Odot became this latest potential hurdle?

Well, in a way, I don't think entirely because you've got Cobb County Executive Chris Ronayne, talking about how he was concerned about the collision potentially between game day traffic and people trying to get to Hopkins to go wherever they're going.

And so that was that's a different issue that obviously doesn't affect pilots.

It affects people on the road.

But there have been transportation related concerns about this.

And I haven't heard any specific reaction to what happened with this particular permit and Odot.

But I think that there have been some, some significant concerns raised about the location of the stadium and how do you continue to do all the stuff that Hopkins does while you're going to be bringing in so many fans at fairly regular intervals during the fall season?

Michele, the the Haslam say they never approached Odot.

So how did the state agency get involved in the first place?

So first off, I think most people probably don't know.

I didn't know until recently that Odot has a Division of Aviation and Aviation Office.

I think people think Odot, they think roads.

They think bridges.

But Odot does deal with airports and airplanes.

And the way this process worked is a consultant working with the Browns, with Haslam Sports Group, filed an application with the FAA to have the height of the stadium project evaluated, because anything that goes above 200ft has to be evaluated.

There are some other, situations where things have to be evaluated as well, depending on how close they are to airports.

That FAA filing triggered a review process with Odot, which is a standard way things work.

So the Haslam did not file anything directly with Odot.

But Odot got this notice from the FAA and then conducted its own process.

And I think the thing that I'm having trouble wrapping my head around with Odot involvement in this is they say that the people who are actually making the review of the permit didn't necessarily know it was even the Brown Stadium they were evaluating.

Yeah.

Well, that's if you look at the correspond ence around, any of these permits related to hazards or no hazards for air travel at the FAA level and at the Odot level.

It doesn't say anything about a stadium.

It doesn't say anything about the Browns.

The person who filed the application is an attorney in Washington, DC.

Working with an aerospace consulting firm in Washington, DC.

So the folks who actually sit and review these permit applications are looking at longitude and latitude.

They are looking at building heights.

So it doesn't even necessarily say Brook Park.

No.

So so, you know, you can put two and two together if you are paying attention to the news and here in Ohio.

But but, I think, you know, this, this is a layer of bureaucracy and sort of technical review that the average person would have no idea about.

So this permit denial from Odot, it's not the end of the road for the Brook Park Stadium.

No.

And and actually, I interviewed, local aviation lawyer and pilot yesterday who said he does not see this as a deal breaker.

He he thinks that there will be a way to work things out, though.

He thinks the Browns might have to alter their design a bit on the site.

Odot itself said, look, here are your avenues for addressing this.

Number one, you can reduce the height of the project.

They're saying it's about 58ft too tall, or you can move the project to another location or move it around on the site, or, Cleveland Hopkins could change its stance.

I don't think that's going to happen.

Or they can file an administrative appeal and seek a hearing, and they have until the end of the month to do that.

All of those things, Michele would seem to suggest, it's 2029, really still feasible as an opening date for the Browns playing in the Brooke Park Stadium?

I think that's a good question.

I was at a public meeting last night in Brook Park, where the president of Haslam Sports Group said that they still expect to start moving dirt this fall and hold a ceremonial groundbreaking in the spring.

And he says they are still on track for 2029.

But you know, anything like this, it can add time and money to a process.

And so I think the the timeline remains to be seen.

Senator Bernie Marino faced a boisterous crowd at the City Club of Cleveland this week.

Marino was the featured speaker at Wednesday's forum.

A number of demonstrators lined the sidewalk outside the venue, while inside the audience frequently interrupted Marino.

At first, he answered questions from NBC reporter Henry Gomez, then from those attending the event.

Gabe Marino's a staunch supporter of President Donald Trump, and that came through in his remarks in defense of the One Big Beautiful Bill act and other policies.

But some of those statements were called into question.

Absolutely.

So you talked about the one big beautiful Bill act and and he made some comments about, well, people were complaining that there going to be cuts to Medicaid in this bill.

And he denied that.

He said there's actually money going into and into Medicaid.

And the situation which which is not which is not true.

The Congressional Budget Office estimates, about 911 billion over the next ten years will be cut from Medicaid.

And here in Ohio, the center for Community Solutions suggests that over ten years, $53 billion is going to be cut to Medicaid Ohio.

So, you know, being a strong supporter of Donald Trump, he leaned in completely, in that regard.

He, at one point talked about Donald Trump trying to, end the war in Ukraine and said that he deserved a Nobel Peace Prize for those efforts.

And that ruffled lot of feathers by people in the crowd, people, you know, jumped in to show disgust and, a whole lot of other things.

I mean, a crackdown on immigration, which there was a big group of people protesting outside the City Club, which is just next door to us.

So I walked out along the street and saw 50 or 60 people holding signs and chanting, and the anti-immigration policies were a lot of the things people were chanting against or having or having signs for.

We've seen protest outside the City Club, but one thing City Club is known for is being a civil discussion, right?

Where it's it's fantastic that we get people from all perspectives who will come and speak and get a respectful audience.

Normally a very civil affair.

This one was not quite as civil as they usually are.

And, at one point City Club had to halt the event to call for a little decorum in the in the hall.

Yes.

I mean, that came from a couple places.

One, Henry Gomez, who was moderating and, you know, had to stop people and say, hey, you know, I've got I've got a couple more questions here.

If you'd let me get to them, we'll we'll get to your questions from the audience when we can.

But even at one point, City Club CEO Dan Lothrop, who was a friend of the show, he at some point had to stop in and intervene and say, you know, we need have some quorum.

Take some deep breaths.

He even he even told people that you know, if you're dissatisfied with with what's going on here and you want to leave, we can refund tickets, which I think is an interesting thing to to say.

Well, it's a it's a free speech forum at its core.

Regardless of party affiliation or or topic, whether you like it or not, it's a free peace forum, free speech, forum that, you know, deserve some decorum.

Karen, I want to bring you into this.

It looks like there's going to be, ongoing fallout from this.

The chair of the Ohio Republican Party is now calling on members to avoid the city club.

What's his stance?

Yeah, he said that it's this is a post last night from acts, that it is not what it purports to be.

And until they foster civil adult conversation, Republicans should decline participation to avoid this spectacle.

And specifically cited what happened at the Marina Forum.

I've been at the City Club a couple of times.

I moderated a pretty raucous debate back in 2012 between Sherrod Brown, Josh Mandel at the, Renaissance Hotel in downtown Cleveland, where you basically had people, 500 people in a room almost during dinner rolls at each other.

So I think that there has been there have been times when there has been frustration among people who have attended.

And I think some of the frustration among those who attended this sellout event that had been organized fairly quickly was that they had not had a chance to speak to or hear from Senator Marino since he got elected.

And they are frustrated with some of the things that they feel are happening that are not what they like.

And so, yeah, I mean, I think that that frustration boiled over.

Dan Walser of Henry Gomez and and the city club's board president, Marc Ross, tried several times to remind people that respectful questioning is what is the hallmark of the City Club and the forum, but it got a little bit heated there, and I think that that's kind of the environment that we're in.

We've seen it at other forums.

I've seen it down here at the Columbus Metropolitan Club in small ways.

But yeah, it's people are frustrated and they come to these events wanting to express something.

Okay.

Yeah.

That lack of accessibility is a huge part in all this.

I mean, I think for people, whether you're the president, United States or some smaller role in small government accessibility, visibility is a huge part.

And for, Bernie Marino, people have been frustrated with his lack of visibility.

I even a few months ago, shortly after the inauguration, it was February, I attended a meeting where about 30 people organized a meeting with Bernie Marino, and he didn't show up.

He sent an aide, and it was just a person taking notes of what everybody had to say.

And people were complaining about government spending at the time.

They were complaining about Elon Musk's involvement with the federal government.

And it was just, you know, speaking into a notepad, essentially.

And the response they got was just an email response.

And it wasn't a lot of conversation.

It wasn't a lot of back and forth.

So, you know, that's February.

It's now August.

And, you know, to not have any accessibility or visibility in that time.

I can see why people are frustrated.

I understand, I'll go ahead.

Karen, I just wanted to add to that Marino himself held his own.

I mean, I don't think there was anything that Marino looked like he was in any way wavering.

I mean, he he took the he pushed right back at criticism.

And I think the moments that were surprising were when there were people in the audience just kind of shouting things out, which is kind of unusual for a city club for him.

But I don't know that Marino himself has had a problem with this.

Back to put out a press release yesterday saying he had a town hall, City Club of Cleveland.

You can watch it here.

So I, I'm not sure if it's Marino who is complaining here or if it's been others who are kind of complaining on his behalf saying Republicans should avoid forums like this.

Ohio Supreme Court Justice Pat Fisher has abandoned his plan to challenge fellow Justice Jennifer Bruner next year for reelection.

Bruner is the sole remaining statewide elected Democrat.

Fisher had intended to challenge Bruner, even though his own term isn't up until 2028.

By then, however, Fisher would be age limited from seeking reelection.

Karen, you were on top of this story, and essentially Fisher bowed out like he said he would if he didn't get his party's endorsement.

Yeah, there were reports coming in about the Ohio Republican Party's judicial screening committee not recommending Fisher for endorsement.

There were five people who were being considered here, and they did not recommend him.

And so I thought, I you know, I looked at my phone, I had his number, texted him.

He called me and said, yeah, I'm not going to run.

I'm going to keep my word.

I told the panel that if I didn't get the endorsement, I was not going to run.

And so he's not going to run.

If he had run like you were just saying, it would have been really extraordinary, because it would have been the second election cycle where we would have seen two justices going against one another.

And last time it was, Justice Joe Deters, Republican, who ran against Democrat Melody Stewart to try to win a full term.

He had been appointed to the rest of a term from Sharon Kennedy, but he wanted a full term.

So he defeated Melody Stewart.

And then this time it would have been Fisher against Bruner, and if he would have won, he would have knocked off the only Democrat remaining on the court, the only statewide elected Democrat in Ohio.

And he would have extended his time on the court because justices can't run after 70 years old and his term expires after he turned 70.

And so that got him a lot of criticism, heat from supporters of other candidates who were in this race, as well as from Democrats who say this would have been really unfair to Brunner to have had to face him in this kind of a contest.

Well, Karen, why the pushback from his own party?

I think that there was a concern about he wasn't, you know, detours had to run in 2024.

He had to run either for the rest of that term that he was appointed to or for another term.

Fisher did not have to run.

He doesn't have to run.

In fact, he can't run again in 2028 when his term is up.

So this would have put him out there.

And potentially I think some people who are supporters of other candidates said he would have taken a place of another candidate who could be joining the court later.

And so there are four other appeals court and other judges who are all angling for the opportunity to compete here against Bruner, and they want their shot.

So there was concern about how this was kind of a political stunt and that, he was trying to beat the age limits and things like that.

So I think that, there, there, that's a problem that Republicans have in the state.

There are a lot of them.

And they want opportunities to run for office.

Governor DeWine defended his decision to send 150 Ohio National Guard troops to D.C. this week to help with what President Trump has declared a public safety emergency.

They joined 650 troops from West Virginia and South Carolina.

Trump claimed that, quote, crime is out of control in D.C., something that local leaders strongly push back on.

Pointing to recent data from the US Department of Justice showing crime in D.C. at a 30 year low.

Karen, what was DeWine's reasoning for sending the Ohio National Guard to D.C.?

Well, when I spoke to him earlier this week, I asked him about that, and he said it really wasn't his decision.

He was Scott.

He had gotten a request from the Secretary of the Army and he was going to respond to that.

He was going to grant that request, as he says, he's granted requests from others, including mayors of cities and Democratic Governor Tim Walz of Minnesota, during the George Floyd protests.

He said that and he's granted the request of southern governors, Republican governors who had asked for help after storms.

And so he said that he was not going to not grant that request.

The only caveat was that none of these troops could be current law enforcement officers, because he didn't want to deplete any local law enforcement of those forces.

So he's getting some some blowback, though.

There is a poll that's out this morning from Emerson that suggests that, 44% of Ohioans approve of sending troops to DC and 42% disapprove.

So it's really a pretty strong split over sending those troops.

If you believe the polling from Emerson, which is a pretty reliable organization, Karen, this has become a very politicized situation.

There are protests in DC against having the guard there.

It's seen by local leaders as a sort of governmental takeover.

And Democrats in Ohio are opposing Dwayne's decision to support Trump's actions.

Yeah, I think there's concern about where this leads.

I mean, DeWine said this is a 30 day assignment.

And so there are plenty of people who say, what happens next?

And if indeed National Guard troops can come to a city where violent crime is at a 30 year low, just because the president says there's a crime emergency.

What about other cities where the crime rate is higher?

And would the National Guard be deployed there as well?

And so there's just real concern about where this goes from here.

Once this 30 day period is over.

President Trump was out last night on the streets of D.C. with some of these, troops kind of walking around, so seeing things for himself.

And so that's the kind of thing that some Democrats have said, this is obviously a political theater and that National Guard troops shouldn't be forced to be a part of that.

Summit County voters will decide a charter amendment this November on whether the county should be able to limit property taxes.

Michelle, you've been on the sound of ideas in the past, and this is an issue where property owners are mixed out there.

But there is concern that frustration may lead to potentially more issues if certain measures are enacted.

Good.

Yeah.

That's right.

Property taxes have been, really hot topic across the state for a few years now.

And state lawmakers have come up with lots of ideas, but have failed to reach consensus on what the best approach is to try to provide some relief to people.

And I think in particular, you hear a lot of these concerns from, elderly homeowners who are living on limited incomes.

There is an effort out there to, abolish property taxes in Ohio to put that before the voters.

And, there are a lot of concerns about the ripple effects from that.

What what that will do to school funding and, and, you know, to other priorities if we don't have property taxes.

But I think the fact that we are at the point of having that conversation shows how fed up people are.

So a lot of times when you start talking about taxes, people either groan and or at the same time they tune out.

So what is at play in this proposed charter amendment in Summit County, in a way that they're going to understand how it impacts them?

Yeah.

So so the idea here is that, the county would have some ability to limit property tax increases and, and that voters would have more of a say on, what goes on with property taxes.

Because at this point, there are some parts of your property tax bill that you vote on, and there are other parts that you don't vote on that just move with the market.

So, Karen, let me bring you into this.

I think what Karen is touching on is something is why those glaze over terms, but is critical here.

We're talking about inside millage.

Correct?

Yeah.

Inside millage is the 1% of property tax value that is not voted on by taxpayers.

So school districts can use that as their beginning level.

Here I guess is is the way to put it.

Maybe.

But there is a bill that would eliminate inside millage, which there's been some criticism about how that is a big part of why we've seen these dramatic increases in property taxes.

Of course, school groups are very concerned.

They say the loss of inside millage could add up to nearly 20,000 teaching positions cut, which is nearly a fifth of the state's teaching workforce.

So they're very concerned about what might happen with this.

It's one of several ideas that are out there to try to deal with rising property taxes.

There is a task force that was convened by governor Mike DeWine.

It's looking at all these kinds of proposals to come up with something to recommend to him by the end of next month.

They just met again yesterday, so there are some discussions happening here.

But obviously property tax bills are coming due here again in January.

And there was a lot of frustration among people who say nothing is really changed here and these are getting out of control for me to afford.

Michelle, some counties, amendment on, property taxes, it would not help if there's a group that's seeking to abolish property taxes succeeds.

Well, yes, because the Summit County proposal would limit tax increases.

And obviously, if we throw property taxes out entirely, then we don't need to limit increases.

But, so there's, you know, that would happen at the state level, would supersede any protections the county would put in place in its charter.

Yeah.

It if if that most extreme approach of getting rid of property tax has happened and I want to bring that up because that's an all volunteer effort.

And while it has a very simple argument, get rid of property taxes.

If you're tired of paying property taxes, there's a huge impact on that.

There's about $24 billion that come into various local governments, from property taxes over the course of a year.

And they find law enforcement, schools, libraries, zoos, all of this kind of stuff.

And so if you get rid of that, what do you replace it with?

And when I've asked the people from this organization that wants to put before voters the question of abolishing the property tax, they say, well, that's the legislature's job to figure that out.

Well, there's been some analysis that says that if you get rid of both property taxes and income taxes, which the Ramaswamy, the leading candidate for governor in Ohio, the Republican who's running, has said he wants to do to get rid of both those, you're going to have to possibly replace that with the sales tax of about 20%.

So there's some real impact here that if you get rid of one tax, you have to do something or else you just don't have those services anymore.

And these are real questions that people have to think about.

Though this volunteer effort feels like it's a big, big hill for these folks to climb to get onto the ballot.

The Cuyahoga Valley Scenic Railroad and Towpath Trail reopened on Monday following years of riverbank erosion improvement work.

The project was announced in March of 2022.

Gabe, let's talk about the work that was done and why it was needed.

Yes.

So they leveled out some high risk for banks.

They added stone and stakes to help protect the bank from erosion.

And the big thing is this 242ft long retaining wall help to prevent erosion.

And what I've what I've read from our reporters, Ari Johnson, is that a lot of native plants were protected along the way.

So I think a lot of people will appreciate that.

So, you know, it's just going to make the park more beautiful for longer.

And, you know, with the the river moving, not getting up and moving but slowly moving over time, this is going to protect it.

How this was not a cheap project where the money come from.

It was not a cheap project.

The money came from the Great American Outdoors Act of 2020, which is created to restore projects on public land.

Monday on the Sound of Ideas on 89 seven WKSU, we bring you our latest community tour conversation on the future of the Shaker Lakes.

It was a well-attended event with a dynamic conversation.

You can hear it in the SOI time slots on Monday.

I'm Andrew Meyer in for Mike McIntyre.

Thanks for watching.