Welcome to the Sound of Ideas Reporters' Roundtable from Ideastream Public Media.

I'm Mike McIntyre.

Thanks so much for joining us.

Congressman Max Miller refused to drop his reelection bid despite abuse allegations and calls by some in his own party to get out.

Suddenly, a suburban Cleveland House district has the nation's attention.

State investigators pointed fingers at FirstEnergy for Lakewood's many power outages, including cooling failing equipment with yard sprinklers.

There's lots of fallout across the state from this week's nasty storms, including a lightning strike at a Lorain County prison that sent 16 to the hospital.

2 Canton cops agreed to plead to lesser charges and to leave the force after subduing a man in 2024 who died on the scene.

And Akron is about to rock the Highland Square neighborhood with PorchRokr.

Joining me to discuss all of this week's news from Ideastream Public Media, reporters Gabriel Kramer and Conor Morris.

Hey, guys.

Howdy.

Happy Friday, Mike.

And happy Friday to you as well.

And at the Statehouse, a woman who knows everyone in Columbus who is off their rocker, IdeaStream's Statehouse News Bureau Chief Karen Kasler.

Hey, Karen.

Spill the tea.

Hey there.

Good morning.

Who is it?

Who's off their rocker out there?

All of us.

Everybody's crazy.

Everybody.

We're about to go into OSU football season, so everybody's losing their mind.

Absolutely.

For sure.

What a great recruiting class, by the way, for next year that they already have.

But we'll get into that some other show.

You can join us via email.

We're not talking about Ohio State football today, but a lot of the news of the week.

And you can join us at soi@ideastream.org to weigh in.

And let's get ready to Roundtable.

Republican U.S.

Representative Max Miller will remain on the November ballot despite allegations of domestic abuse made by his ex-wife, Emily Moreno.

Which Miller has denied, and calls by her father as well, U.S.

Senator Bernie Moreno, and his fellow Republican, U.S.

Senator John Husted, to step down.

So, Gabe, you've been covering this story.

What did Miller say about why he chose to stay in the race?

Well, not a whole lot.

We did get a statement from one of his spokespeople who had said that, you know, they're excited to continue what they had started in 2023.

They had won 2 elections and they're hoping to win a 3rd one.

And keep representing this 7th District.

You know, I think it's one of those things where, you know, we're talking to other political analysts about the situation who are seeing this as a guy who is facing obvious tremendous controversy.

You know, he denies allegations, but it's something that he has to figure out.

And he is very close with the president who got elected twice despite having a lot of controversy himself.

So a lot of political analysts are telling me He sees himself in the president.

They're close, and he sees perhaps he could win despite all of this embattlement that he's facing.

And I think, you know, because they're so close, you know, they're, you know, they probably have these, you know, discussions about what should happen.

But, you know, some people are saying, you know, in the past, this would have never happened.

I mean, this would have never happened.

This would have ended a campaign immediately.

So we're living in different times now about him staying in the race here.

Now, you talked to Dave Cohen, a political science professor at the University of Akron, who said this would be a deal killer.

But now we're in a new era.

And really it started, I think, probably with the first Trump election.

But the idea that that kind of stuff doesn't necessarily disqualify a candidate.

Right.

But perhaps not so much that he could win the election.

I think, you know, what Cohen had told me is that this is a huge gift for the Democrats.

This is a district that was in favor of Max Miller after, after he had won the primary in May.

The Cook Political Report, which is this national political analytical journal, has nonpartisan, nonpartisan, has this 7-point scale of different places where you can place a race, whether it's a congressional race or a Senate race.

In the middle is a toss-up.

On the far right, it's likely it's solid Republican and then likely Republican.

And it went from all the way to the right after May, the primary, solidly Republican, solid Republican to likely Republican.

In June and then skipped over one spot back to the middle of toss-up just last week.

So even at this federal level, they're saying that this is a toss-up in the race.

And the political analysts in the area are saying that this could actually be in favor of Brian Poindexter, the Democrat running the race.

We all saw Max Miller on his X video that he made, and he dropped a bunch of documents on Dropbox.

He said were the receipts basically showing that he's not guilty of any of the things that his ex-wife accuses him of.

But in that, it did look like he was defiant, that he wasn't going to drop out of the race.

And it was reported that he did talk with President Trump, and President Trump basically said, kid, it's going to be tough for you to win.

And indeed, as you said, he said, well, listen, you did it, sir, and I'm that kind of guy.

And so I'm just a person who won't bow out.

The question is, does that hurt the Republicans?

Because you see Jon Husted and Bernie Moreno both saying you should get out.

You see others kind of keeping quiet about it now that that has passed and he is their candidate.

Question is, what do we expect?

Do we see the Republicans falling behind him, or is he just basically going to be, you're on your own?

Well, it's interesting because it seems like for the first time in a long time we've seen this Republican Party in Ohio not have this super strong solidarity amongst each other.

And, you know, credit to Mother Jones, uh, for producing this article a few weeks ago, providing all these details about Emily Moreno and his ex-wife and all the allegations facing him.

It took uh, Max Miller a couple weeks to respond and deny the allegations on Facebook and releasing this Dropbox link that we'll, that we'll dig into here shortly.

But you have, um, him saying, I'm staying in the race, I'm confident staying in the race.

And you think, okay, he's staying in the race, he's confident, the president has his back.

And, and then you see his ex-father-in-law, who is a senator, you see the other Senator John Hewitt saying, not so fast, we think you should drop out of the race or you're not fit for office.

And so now it's, now it's like, whoa, What is going to happen?

So he stayed through the race.

And I think what the political analysts are telling me is perhaps they're not going to support this race.

Perhaps this is where Republicans or people on the fence will just leave this one blank on the ballot or not show up to the ballot, which could hurt Republicans and support the Democrats.

Democrats are not doing that on the national level.

We're seeing more support for Brian Poindexter in his race.

They're saying, hey, this thing's in play, and so maybe we should give him some campaign advice and some other kinds of support.

And then you also have a protest today from locals who are supporting Brian Poindexter, or maybe just those who are opposing Max Miller, in Parma this afternoon, where they're going to be rallying against Max Miller.

Right.

And not only is that rally happening today, which I will be at later today, earlier this week there was a rally in favor of Max Miller that was, that was canceled.

So it's interesting to see how I mean, it kind of feels like a wave of momentum where a Max Miller pro-Max Miller rally got canceled and an anti-Max Miller rally got scheduled in the last few days.

But right, you're saying the Democrats are responding to Miller's decision, providing the Democrat candidate who was a councilman in Brook Park, Brian Poindexter, additional funding to his campaign from the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.

Now, let's talk about another development this week.

We said it was a nasty divorce.

There's custody discussions.

And Bernie Moreno actually pointed out to that it's not as though 2 people who are married can walk away from each other.

When they have a child, it's a completely different issue.

And so a lot of this is centered on the child.

And when Max Miller put out his document, his trove of documents, in those were some photographs of this child for the purported injuries that she had.

And because of one of those photos, there's now a new lawsuit this week, right?

So it's interesting, you know, we're sitting here a couple weekends ago and we're seeing this unfold on social media, Facebook and Twitter or whatever it may be, and we're seeing Max Miller put out this big defense to deny all these allegations, and then we see Bernie Moreno responding to it, um, in, in long-form writing on social media, um, to protect his suggesting he wants to protect his family and his daughter Emily Moreno.

And what Max Miller did to help defend his case was release all of these lawsuit files, and part of that was a photo of his daughter that his wife is claiming Um, is a, uh, well, let me see.

So it shows her genitalia, right?

I know it's a tough thing to say, but shows her genitalia.

So she's accusing Miller of, uh, negligence, civil conspiracy, liability of criminal acts, citing one of Ohio's child pornography laws.

And for each time that photo was shared, um, he could be liable for $150,000 per share of that file.

He and his lawyer.

He and his lawyer.

And that thing was up for almost an entire day, not, not in the full 24 hours.

Now I'll admit that thing came out on a Sunday, So when I came into work on a Monday, it was not accessible for me to access or, or, you know, find out what was really in there, right?

But it was part of his defense to say, I'm, I'm not at fault.

Now, he doesn't face any criminal charges, so we were kind of expecting some civil charges to come about, and these are the ones that we are first hearing about.

Yeah, civil complaint that they have filed.

Um, by the way, the lawyer has denied he's, first of all, took it down and said, we, you know, sorry we posted that photo, but there wasn't he claims that what they're saying the photo was of, it wasn't.

And so, right, that will be a matter for the courts.

But again, as we mentioned, it's messy, getting messier.

Yeah, and it's, and it's, it's a tough thing to talk about because the what his wife, ex-wife claims is that he was violent toward him and his daughter.

The claim is that he broke his daughter's collarbone.

The claim is that he threw hot water on his wife.

The claim is that he had a gun to her head.

He denies all this.

He even went on that social media stream to say, you know, the hot water was playful, you know, it was from the faucet thing.

Yeah.

Um, so, you know, he's defending himself, but it's, it's one of those things where, yes, he's a public figure who's facing this, and it's hard, uh, to think about their family going through this, a 2-year-old daughter going through this.

And even Democrat Sherrod Brown saying, I don't want to say that's, that's them, that's their family, I don't want to put politics in there.

So, you know, Bernie Moreno said the same thing about, you know, this is his family, obviously.

Um, yeah, I think a lot of people have been tight-lipped about it.

I've been trying to speak with Republicans and Democrats for the last 2 weeks, uh, what their thoughts are on the situation.

A lot of people are just kind of keeping their cards close to their chest.

I reached out to the county Republican chairs for every county that represents Miller's district, and they've either declined to comment or just never responded to me at all.

Okay, well, we'll continue to follow that story, and thanks for being on it.

16 incarcerated men were struck by lightning Tuesday at the Grafton Correctional Institution in Lorain County.

7 men remain hospitalized, including one listed in serious condition.

And Karen, I was reading the news coverage on this and it was, uh, just stunning.

A couple of them actually stopped breathing.

There was CPR that was provided for them.

But the question is, in the middle of a storm, what were they doing outside?

How did this happen?

Yeah, lightning strikes are no joke, and that's why there were reports that this outdoor yard was closed at one point, but it's unclear whether the yard was actually closed or whether those folks were allowed to walk across it.

They were leaving their evening meal and apparently going across it when that lightning strike happened.

And there were a total of 19 people who were injured, but 16 were taken to the hospital.

So it was a very serious situation, and it just showed how incredibly powerful these storms were that came through most of Ohio on Tuesday.

And we got another round on Wednesday, and I think we're getting more storms today.

But it's, it's really a weird time of year for this to happen because this kind of severe weather seems to happen more often in April in May, like the spring weather, rather than in the late summer like this one's happening in.

What the governor had said was that the yard was closed for some time, then the rain kind of let up and they opened the yard, and 2 minutes later, as these men were coming back from a dining hall, that's when the lightning strike happened.

But the governor also said, listen, there was no indication there would be lightning.

We had no idea such a danger could exist.

And yet there had been a flood warning issued for that for that Lorain County area at 1 o'clock that afternoon.

There was video that showed lightning striking when nobody was in the yard.

The question is whether this was prudent for the prison officials to allow people to be anywhere outdoors in the midst of as we know, if you, if you have a thunderstorm, you have the likelihood of lightning.

Yeah, and the lightning in these storms really seemed to come and go, and so it was really unpredictable.

And I think that kind of speaks to what the governor was saying there.

But certainly there will be more investigations about this because this is I mean, we got more than a dozen people injured in something that happened unexpectedly, but in a way could have been expected.

It's the kind of thing that certainly raises questions.

Earlier that day, the governor had issued a state of emergency, proclaimed that in Perry and Muskingum counties, not in Lorain County.

But it just showed the kind of destruction that these storms did earlier in the week in Northeast Ohio.

A lot of people without power, downed trees in my neighborhood and elsewhere, but really severe damage in some of these other counties.

Yeah, Perry and Muskingum County, there was a lot of flooding.

A village called Crooksville, that's where DeWine spent some time on Wednesday, and also a village called Roseville, which is kind of straddling both those counties there, which is in western, well, central Ohio, but toward the east.

There was a someone who died in Roseville because of these storms.

And these storms were really serious at one point.

There's video of a car that was driving on 71, I-71 in Columbus, and it got flipped over by the winds.

So these were some serious, serious storms that were coming through, and it just seemed like they were relentless.

Yeah, I saw that video.

Shocking.

you're driving along and suddenly there you go.

Shocking.

Yeah, exactly.

Well, the incident, it's the latest in a string of violent storms over the summer really, and the weather has left thousands without power.

It's a situation all too familiar to folks in Lakewood too.

And the utilities Public Utilities Commission of Ohio's recent investigation found aging equipment, sometimes when weather was just fine actually, were to blame for outages there in Lakewood.

Karen, let's talk about the PUCO.

It delivered a notice of probable non-compliance to FirstEnergy.

What does probable non-compliance mean?

Well, it's serving notice that there's a serious problem here in terms of there are about 800 calls that were received.

There were 7 major power outages that hit Lakewood.

Lakewood City Council was talking about legal action.

You know, the Ohio Consumers Council, which is the agency that represents ratepayers in rate cases before the Public Utilities Commission, they've said that there's a serious concern here, that this isn't just about weather.

I spoke to the Ohio Consumers Council, Maureen Willis, for our TV show, The State of Ohio, this week.

She said this is this has gone beyond just what you would expect in severe weather, that there's a real question here about reliability.

And the PUCO now has proposed a more than $3 million fine, a $3 million penalty against FirstEnergy because of those power outages in Lakewood.

And this comes just a couple of months after FirstEnergy asked the PUCO if they could lower reliability standards.

The PUCO said no, what's happening right now is just and reasonable.

is not not great.

Yeah, and Meghan George, the mayor of Lakewood, has been sounding this alarm for a long time.

I know, Gabe, you had been doing, uh, stories on that and the folks in Lakewood who are upset about this.

She's been saying forever that we're getting short shrift from FirstEnergy.

This report seems to bear that out.

It says there's old equipment.

It says there's transformers that are overheating and being cooled with sprinklers, that this is not getting the kind of investment that FirstEnergy said it was.

Right.

And in Lakewood, that's the only electric utility that is available to Lakewood residents.

And Megan George has said to me repeatedly that she's hoping to find other options for her residents, but it's not necessarily an overnight process.

So yeah, I think, you know, people are certainly frustrated.

And to see businesses have to close for several days or families have to go weeks without cooling and, you know, AC and refrigeration, people are upset and losing money because they can't rely on on FirstEnergy, right?

And Karen, so this probable non-compliance means that FirstEnergy can respond.

We don't have a fine yet at this point, but FirstEnergy will be able to try to make an explanation to the PUCO.

Well, the PUCO has given FirstEnergy and Cleveland Electric Illuminating until August 21st to respond here.

But there's also another thing that is going on those transformers.

There was a prior complaint about those transformers.

A new one was installed in June, and another one is going to be installed in September.

So this has been a continuing problem, definitely.

Okay.

Cuyahoga County is losing nearly $1.2 million in state funding meant to make homes lead safe because the money wasn't spent by a July deadline.

If it sounds familiar, that's because Cleveland lost even more cash, $3.3 million earlier this year for the same reason.

And Conor, when we talk about this, how much did the county receive?

How much was it able to spend?

And then in the end, what was left over they had to give back?

Yeah, so it was about $8.1 million in Lead Safe Ohio grant funding.

They got that in 2023, so they've had some time to spend this, and they failed to spend about $1.2 million by the deadline this year.

The unspent money, it was meant for work in Cleveland and East Cleveland, and these are some of the places with some of the highest lead poisoning rates in the area.

And, you know, of course, lead poisoning that could lead to issues with child development, you know, brain health and things of that nature.

What they were explaining is it was difficult to spend this money.

And you got to think about the bureaucracy of these programs.

It wasn't as though they just gave them money and then they said, okay, we're just going to hire contractors, dole out money, and we're done with it all.

There were so many requirements, income requirements and other things.

And in fact, residents in some cases just didn't want to go through the rigmarole and wouldn't do it.

Yeah.

And so that was, you know, it was really just the regulations.

The question is whether those regulations can be dealt with so that this money can be spent in a more expeditious manner.

Yeah, I mean, it's something we've dug into previously in some of our reporting years ago.

I mean, it's something called administrative burden, which is the hoops that we make folks jump through to, you know, qualify for a program for assistance in this country for a lot of programs.

And CHN Housing Partners, which was the one that had the contract to dole this money out with the county, they said their contract with the county wasn't even finalized until July 2024.

So they had a small lead time to get into it.

And then the Lead Safe Cleveland Coalition here also said federal income verification requirements made it difficult for some homeowners to complete the applications.

There were, on the other side of it, there were a couple other vendors that, you know, did spend the money on time, the Cuyahoga County Board of Health and Cleveland Heights.

But, you know, they might have had it.

I'm not sure how much money they had, but this is a large amount of money to spend in a short amount of time.

Yeah.

And what's the shame about it is we've talked for years here about the scourge of lead poisoning, what it's doing to young children in older housing stock.

And when you have the money there to fix it, it's just, it just seems like such a shame that you can't get the job done and have to send it back to the state.

Sure.

Well, it's making residents upset as well.

They're saying, what are you doing with our, you know, we put our trust in you to do this, you know.

And, and, you know, on Cleveland's side, the city, as you mentioned at the top of this, lost $3.3 million of $4.9 million that was allocated to it.

They announced that in early February.

They did, you know, Cleveland Mayor Justin Bibb did announce, you know, kind of a new czar, former council member Rebecca Maurer, to oversee lead poisoning prevention and housing policy on this front.

So they did say, hey, we've got somebody new in this that's going to be taking the lead on this, who has years of experience on this front.

So we really are taking this issue seriously.

Right.

And the city of Cleveland lost a much bigger percentage of its funding.

Yes.

Had to give back a much bigger percentage.

But every dollar counts.

Yes.

All right.

In Canton, 2 now former police officers have pleaded guilty in connection with the death of an East Canton man.

Frank Tyson died while in the custody of the officers, Beau Schoenegge and Camden Burch, in April of 2024.

Tyson was subdued in a bar after police say he was fleeing from a crash on Canton's east side.

And Gabe, as part of this guilty plea, they both agreed to immediately resign from the Canton department.

What exactly they plead guilty to we say it's lesser charges, so they were, they were on the hook for, for something much more serious.

What did they plead guilty to?

So Schoenegge pleaded guilty to dereliction of duty.

Camden Burch pleaded guilty to failure to report a crime.

Uh, both officers have been facing one count of reckless homicide, so there's a plea deal for lesser charges, and they have to leave the, the force.

They agreed to do that?

Yeah, yeah, they have these convictions, and we all saw the video of this thing.

It's You know, the person is saying that he can't breathe.

There's something like 8 minutes goes by before any aid is rendered to them.

I think most people looked at it, just said that is really bad policing.Yeah.

The officers had claimed that they that Frank Tyson, a Black man, was resisting arrest.

The body cam footage shows that they were pretty aggressive, using expletives.

I mean, I'm sure that's not the worst thing in the world, but, you know, it's, it's, it's part of it.

And, uh, he had been claiming he couldn't breathe.

And, uh, they waited, uh, 7 minutes to provide him help.

7, right?

7 minutes to provide him, uh, CPR, and then eventually gave him Narcan.

But he was laying there for 7 minutes before any help, um, having given to him.

Um, in fact, one of the officers, when he said, I can't breathe, said, you're fine, shut the blank up.

Exactly.

Yeah, that's the, the bad words I was referencing.

But yeah, that's the, uh, um, pardon me, The autopsy had determined that it was a homicide.

There were other factors that led to his death according to it, but it was, uh, you know, drugs and alcohol in his system, obesity.

But it was, uh, the autopsy said the main cause of death was homicide.

And what will the sentences for these 2 former officers be?

Um, they face, uh, up to 90 days in jail, $750 fine, uh, for, uh, Schoennegge Uh, Burch faces 30 days in jail and a $250 fine.

They were on administrative leave.

They're off the force.

And then the sentencing will be at a later date.

Okay, thank you.

The Ohio Supreme Court ruled that residents in Ashville in central Ohio should be allowed to vote on plans for 2 data centers and a natural gas plant there.

If residents collect enough valid petitions, petitions, the issues will be put to a vote.

And Karen, tell us more about the court's decision and the company behind the project, EdgeConnex.

Well, this all comes from a deal that the village of Ashville struck with EdgeConnex, which wants to build 2 data centers and a natural gas plant next to them to power them.

And this deal, once there were some people in Ashville who found out about it, they started gathering signatures to put this to a referendum, to put it before voters.

And the city came back and said one city official actually signed her name to this, saying that this was emergency legislation and therefore was not subject to a referendum.

And so they took it to the Ohio Supreme Court.

And what's interesting, I think, here is there's this group called Data Center Resistance, which has been helping in this case and some others.

And that group is headed up by former Democratic candidate for governor and former Democratic candidate for Congress, Ed Fitzgerald, and also Democratic former Attorney General Mark Dan is involved with this group.

But they kind of got involved in terms of a friend of the court briefing.

And so when this decision came out, they were pretty pleased with this.

Mark Dan told me that this is going to be the first, potentially the first vote on data centers that we're really going to see in Ohio.

Now, there's no guarantee that there will be a vote because the decision only says that the petitions must be submitted to the Pickaway County Board of Elections.

The Board of Elections still could decide that this was an administrative action and therefore not subject to a referendum.

So we're just going to have to see if this actually goes forward in November.

They might also say there are not enough valid signatures to compel a vote, so all of that can happen.

But what happened here was the roadblock was the city said We're not turning them into the Board of Elections.

It's, it's not, it's not something we have to do.

What the court said is, yes, you do.

You have to turn it in.

If it becomes valid that there should be a vote, then you have to hold a vote, right?

And the city had claimed that, again, this was emergency legislation, but the Supreme Court said the city didn't do enough to prove that this was emergency legislation, and therefore the residents should be allowed to go ahead and put this before voters.

And it's interesting because there's a bill that a Republican state lawmaker just proposed that would lower the threshold for people who are gathering signatures for local referendums and initiatives like this, not state, because Republicans have talked about making it harder to, for citizens to amend the Ohio Constitution.

But this particular Republican representative, Ty Matthews out of Findlay, has said he'd like to see more local people have more of a voice in some of the things that happen.

And data centers is a big part of that.

All right.

When considering local voices, in data centers.

Stow City Council is considering permanent regulations for data centers in that city.

It's different than the temporary moratoriums we've seen across Ohio in places like Cleveland, Twinsburg, Hudson, and Ravenna.

Conor, tell us more about this proposal.

Yeah, so a couple of these rules, uh, data center buildings would have to be at least 75 feet away from property lines.

There'd be regulations on noise and use of the electric grid and water usage, applicants would have to show that they had enough utility capacity to really allow these things to happen in, in the city.

So where do we stand with that?

There's, uh, it's been proposed in council.

There'll be some discussion.

There's going to be a public hearing next month on the ordinance, and the goal is establishing the rules before any projects get proposed in the area.

All right, for those in Stowe, that is September 10th in the council chambers.

Uh, hearing is scheduled for 5 PM, and folks can weigh as they have.

But when we went out and talked to people at our library tour about what they're interested in for election season this year, data centers, which we wouldn't have heard 2 years ago, is now one of the top things that people are concerned about.

Well, we're really seeing, yeah, a patchwork of councils and other folks kind of responding to this in the news lately.

For sure.

All right, we've got more to talk about in this program, including one community that said no to Flock cameras.

And what you might see at PorchRokr.

Hint: after three, me definitely not rocking.

For now, here's Idea Streams rock star Stephanie Haney with a look at next week on the Sound of Ideas on 89.7 WKSU.

Hey there, Mike.

Here's what we have coming up next week on the Sound of Ideas.

On Monday, we kick things off with our Law of the Land series This is where we look at how the law affects our everyday lives, and on Monday, we're talking about student loans.

This is in light of the recent developments of lawsuit challenging the elimination of the SAVE repayment program We'll talk about student loans in general as well as what you need to know about the RAP program, which replaced the SAVE program.

Tuesday, the conversation turns to high-risk pregnancies and maternal health.

Ideastreams Amy Eddings sat down with Dr.

David Hackney, Hes an OB GYN with University Hospitals and a professor at Case Western Reserve University and has a new book out called Impossible Choices, This is a guide for physicians who are dealing with high risk pregnancy patients in a world after the overturning of Roe versus Wade.

Also on Tuesday, our coordinating producer Drew Maziasz caught up with Robin Greenfield, an environmental activist who is in the middle of a 1-year journey to survive completely on food that has been foraged.

Then on Wednesday, the conversation goes to wildlife management across the state of Ohio focusing specifically on managing deer populations in urban areas.

And we round things out on Thursday talking with the organization behind a TEDx event that is coming to Northeast Ohio next week.

We haven't had a public TEDx event in the Cleveland area since 2015. but that changes next week.

We'll talk with organizers and some of the speakers.

Back to you in the studio, Mike.

Thank you, Stephanie.

I wonder if foraging food also counts like when you find half a hot dog out on the sidewalk and it looks pretty good.

I mean, why not?

Yeah, we've all done that once or twice.

I've left the ballpark and put a hot dog here.

You pick it up.

That's community.

Exactly right.

All right.

Well, you are back with the Sound of Ideas Reporters Roundtable from Ideastream Public Media.

I'm Mike McIntyre, along with Gabe Kramer and Conor Morris.

And Ideastream Statehouse News Bureau Chief Karen Kasler is with us as well.

And a reminder, before we get back to the show, take our Ideastream news quiz.

You can find it on our website at ideastream.org/quiz.

This show is like your Princeton Review for that quiz, and it's free.

So check out the Ideastream News Quiz.

You can subscribe to have it sent to your inbox each week on Friday morning.

Streetsboro City Council has rejected a $63,000 contract for Flock safety license plate camera readers after residents raised concerns about privacy, data access, and government surveillance.

Conor, this is an argument that is being played out all across communities throughout the state of Ohio.

We've talked about it in Cleveland where there is big debate.

There's a group called Flock No that says we shouldn't have it because it's an invasion of privacy.

There are police officers and others that I've talked to that said if you don't have Flock, you're not catching criminals.

We need this as a, as a tool.

So what do we have in Streetsboro?

In Streetsboro, they're siding with too much Big Brother government.

Yeah.

Several council members, you know, actually changed their position after hearing from residents and doing some more research, they said.

Councilmember Michael Lampa said concerns about privacy and accuracy and, and government oversight kind of outweighed the benefits that he had heard.

And then one of the council members said, yeah, I just heard from my residents and they are very opposed to this, so I'm going to vote no.

Hmm.

And it's interesting to see that they changed their vote.

It wasn't a huge giant contract, but it might give us an idea of what might be happening in individual communities, just in the same way We talked about data centers.

Flock cameras are something that locals will have some influence in deciding.

Yeah, I mean, this is another way that government is responding to changing technology and the changing times, you know.

You know, residents have been questioning how much information the cameras collect, who can access, and how long that information is available.

Is it going to be used for immigration enforcement?

Is it going to be shared with other states?

You know, we heard, you know, concerns this week and recently about Oh, is this going to be used to track folks who go to other states to get abortions?

You know, are they going to get in trouble or potentially be tracked in that regard?

So, and there's also some information that's coming out about police officers using this information inappropriately to potentially track ex-spouses and things of that nature.

There's concerns about this being used for domestic violence and things of that nature, stalking.

So there's just a lot, a whole litany of concerns that this is opening the door to.

And those are the concerns.

I talked to somebody who's a grand jury foreman who says you would not believe how many of the cases that are brought to us, their crimes are solved by police because of Flock cameras.

Some somebody does a shooting here, you saw some kind of car, now you're able to track it and you are solving that crime.

If you what he said is if you don't have Flock cameras, you're not solving these crimes.

And I hear the governor and the attorney general both making that same argument that, that while there are concerns and that it needs to be regulated properly, these are essential police crime-fighting tools.

Yeah, DeWine said just because a tool is abused does not mean the tool is not an effective tool.

So it's interesting that attorney general, uh, has backed the cameras amid a broader debate around this kind of civil liberties versus privacy.

Um, and But it does raise concerns also that I've heard an argument on the other side that's like, okay, well, if you're saying that we really could not solve crimes without these cameras, but then what were you doing before?

You know, how were you solving crimes before?

So that's a concern.

And also, you know, I've heard that as well.

I mean, I've covered criminal cases before, and camera, you know, information has been pretty key.

Like, oh, we've seen this person And there is the other concern though about can we, might we be misidentifying or even racial profiling folks through the use of these cameras?

Hmm.

Okay.

As the homeless population rises in Ohio, Northeast Ohio has 2 more shelters available for housing as of this week, one in Cuyahoga County, which was actually an expanded and renovated one, and one in Portage County as well.

And Gabe, tell us about the renovated space in Cleveland, right, actually just a couple of blocks from here.

Right.

So that's Norma Herr.

That's the women's shelter.

That's, you know, long served Cleveland and Cuyahoga County for a long time.

They had a $31 million revamp starting in 2024 that they're happy to unveil.

It sounds exciting.

More personal space, more amenities like a computer lab, bigger dining space, courtyard, outdoor green space, lounging areas.

And key, individual bathrooms.

Individual bathrooms.

And, you know, just more comfortable space.

And Previously 175 beds, now 203.

So now you have 28 more people who could be served at Norma Herr.

And this serves women, women who are unhoused.

Obviously the need for upgrading.

I know we have done stories in the past about conditions weren't particularly great there.

And yeah, and so now thats done.

I know this county had a big press conference and the county executive was able to talk about the work that they did there.

It was a long time coming.

And as we mentioned, this thing has been going on, this renovation, multi-million dollar renovation is going on for some time.

Conor?

Mike, I was just gonna say there's very frequently a shortage of beds in this county.

Some of the, like Laura's Home, for example, they're frequently just at max capacity And so you're on a waiting list.

And so there's definitely a need for this.

And this, the Norma Herr Center is owned by the the City of Cleveland and the Emerald Development and Economic Network Incorporated.

They partnered on doing it.

EDEN owns Norma Herr.

Gabe, there's the other one that I mentioned, and this one is in Portage County, and it's a low barrier shelter.

And I've talked a lot with Chris Nestrick at Northeast Ohio Coalition for the Homeless about barriers, that even though you have a shelter, you may have barriers to get in.

Barriers such as you have to be in recovery or you know, there are a bunch of those here.

Those barriers are, are lowered in, in that county, right?

So it's called Tommy's Place.

It's in Ravenna, a 10-bed facility, uh, kind of focusing on people who are facing mental health challenges, substance abuse, uh, disorders, uh, people who have trouble with the justice system.

And yeah, Chris Nestrick from we can now call it NEOCH, the Northeast Ohio Coalition for the Homeless NEOCH has said to me several times that this is kind of a system that really works for people when you give them a space, and rather than providing them rules and regulations that to follow.

Yeah, you don't need background checks, or yeah, you don't need to pass these tests or checks to get in.

But Chris said so many times that this is very helpful for people.

This is something that when you give them a space, it kind of I mean, people use, abuse whatever they want to abuse because it's an escape to the reality that is kind a, a bummer, I guess, to say the least.

When you give them a space, it's less of a bummer.

And some of the times people are able to heal a little bit easier when, when that first step is taken, rather than putting a barrier to heal first before you get that space.

Yeah, that's a, that's an age-old debate about whether you should have someone be clean and sober and then they can have housing, or whether they get clean and sober because they have stable housing.

But Tommy's Place will also provide these additional supports to help people face these challenges with some help.

Okay.

And we mentioned, or we might not have mentioned, we'll mention now, the number of people experiencing homelessness in Ohio has gone up.

Talk about that.

Yeah, I mean, so Conor mentioned it.

I mean, the homelessness is up.

These places are constantly full.

You know, NEOCH opened up a temporary shelter last winter and that thing was getting a lot of use.

But yeah, so the numbers are, Ohio had a little bit more than 12,000 people experiencing homelessness in 2025.

That's a 3.7% increase from 2024, 8.3% increase from 2007.

So it's, it's, this thing's not going away.

I mean, it should go away, but it's not going away easily.

Right.

And also Ohio had the 3rd largest increase in the number of unaccompanied homeless youth in 2025.

That number increased by 131 over 2024, by 251 since 2017.

Obviously a problem that we're seeing local communities trying to address.

And some of these newer homes, not necessarily these ones we're talking about, some of the newer ones we've seen in the area are dedicated for families, for people who have kids and give them a space for their family to kind of have as their own.

Okay.

Ohio is moving toward tighter state oversight of recovery housing known as substance-free residences.

Governor Mike DeWine says the number of these residences has grown greatly in the last several years.

And Karen, then what is it about the number of these residences and the concern that the governor has that makes him say it needs more regulation?

Well, the state doesn't directly certify or accredit these recovery housing units, and so they contract with 2 different companies.

And the number of recovery housing units has gone from 356 houses in 2022 to more than 1,700 houses in 2026.

So it's really exploded here.

And the concern is that some of these places are they're not very good in terms of the cleanliness.

There are too many people there.

There are some serious concerns about fraud.

But also, I think there's a concern about if you are trying to help people with a very challenging journey of recovery and they're in housing that is just not supporting what they're trying to accomplish here, that they could be at risk for that.

And so DeWine signed an executive order, an emergency executive order on Monday, giving the Ohio Department of Behavioral Health the ability to directly certify this recovery housing for the foreseeable future.

Now, DeWine does leave office here in January, but he's asking a state panel that codifies different things to actually put that into law so that it will continue on after he's left the governor's office.

Yeah, there's a House bill that's out there as well that would codify what it is that the governor's talking about.

Yeah.

And the sponsor of that bill, Representative Justin Pizzulli, is from Scioto County, which was the epicenter of the opioid crisis and led the state in opioid overdose deaths for a while.

And so he knows firsthand in Scioto County, there are only, I think, like 74,000 people who live in Scioto County, but there are 111 of these recovery houses in Scioto County.

So he's very familiar with this whole idea of making sure that these places, which are serving people who have serious needs here, are actually doing the job and are safe places and are taking care of these folks.

Yeah, I saw he called it the Wild West.

So clearly it's a concern in his region as well.

The Cleveland Metropolitan School District is facing another round of potential cuts after a new financial forecast projects the district could run out of cash and fall about $50 million into the red within 4 years.

Conor, hold on a minute.

Didn't they just do a huge consolidation plan?

They reduced the footprint, they shed staff.

They say that that has worked, that they're saving tens of millions of dollars a year, but still we're in crisis within 4 years?

It's a hard pill to swallow for, for them and for a lot of other folks.

But I mean, yeah, their last forecast before they did all these cuts showed that they'd be running out of money, you know, in a similar way in 3 years' time.

So they've pushed it back another year.

They also passed a levy not that long ago, folks might remember, in 2024.

So yes.

And so the district's argument is we are being flat funded by the state, basically.

If the Fair School Funding Plan, as folks might know, if they say it had been fully funded, then we would be getting like $160 million extra over the next, like this year and next year.

So they're saying that the state's not really supporting us like we were hoping for.

And also healthcare costs are massively increasing They said $10 million increase alone in one year.

I mean, it seems like they're facing just really challenging headwinds.

Also, as we've reported on, enrollment's going to continue to decline.

There was a recent enrollment study that was conducted that shows that they're going to be losing enrollments, you know, several thousand students between now and the next like 10 years or so.

Yeah, there's a decline, a cliff in demographics there.

But in addition to that, the increase in the vouchers gives people a whole lot of choice to go to private schools and remove themselves from the public school system too.

Sure.

And there's a longer on that front, that's kind of a longer game that we've been seeing of folks leaving the city.

Um, and it's not just because of vouchers.

I mean, Cleveland's lost a ton of population over the years.

Uh, also, a lot of schools argue actually the, the state's funding system has been unconstitutional.

The Supreme Court ruled that a couple times in the '90s and early 2000s.

And so they say we're kind of coming from a deficit initially from funding anyway.

So we've been in a tough spot regardless.

And what do the district officials, CEO Warren Morgan, others say about controlling expenses in the future?

I mean, clearly they're, they're not going to allow themselves to be in a $50 million deficit in 4 years Something is going to have to happen.

What will it be?

There are probably gonna have to be more cuts for sure.

There's not really nobody in the state's probably gonna be coming or the federal government's gonna be coming to save them.

To speak.

So really, they're going to be in a tough boat, and a lot of public schools are in a tough boat right now.

We're hearing a lot of them cutting back over across the country and across the region as well.

But yeah, CEO Warren Morgan saying it's not a one-and-done process.

We're going to have to keep dealing with this.

All right, let me share some feedback we had on the discussion about Flock cameras.

Tom says, for the cities turning over police work to Flock camera automation, certainly that must mean they'll need to hire far fewer police officers, engage in far fewer police chases, and have fewer deadly police encounters, saving taxpayers millions of dollars per year, right?

And that's Tom's point of view.

Daryl says, with the proper guardrails to protect information isn't Flock a good tool to track criminals without the need for police chases?

So that's Darryl's point of view as well.

People, as I said, are interested in that FLOC issue, in data centers, and really in all the news.

The people that listen to this show and watch it as well are very engaged, and we appreciate you being engaged with the program.

The Akron Public Schools unveiled new security policies for athletic events held on school property for the upcoming year.

It's not just students, Conor.

The big change has to do with bags.

They have to be small and clear.

Yeah, only clear bags, no larger than a certain amount.

They still are allowing like diaper bags as well to district events, but no book bags and no purses.

And this is coming as we've seen some violent incidents at schools.

There have been some fights.

One student was stabbed a few years ago, and then a couple of incidents of guns have been brought into schools as well.

And so that's caused concerns.

We did report quite a bit on teacher safety concerns years ago, several years ago, and there was a significant amount of money that the district put in place toward metal detectors.

Yeah, $3 million in upgrades then.

Yeah, but they're basically saying we don't want to make headlines.

You're coming in, we're going to make sure that you're that you're safe, not armed, that everyone else at the event is safe as well.

Yeah, and we've seen music festivals and other large events put similar regulations in place over the last, you know, 5 to 10 years.

I can recall reporting on this elsewhere in that regard.

Yeah.

All right, the Akron Urban League has placed its top administrative leaders on furlough, including its president and CEO John Williams.

They're doing that because the nonprofit is working to address financial pressures tied to rising costs and declining donations.

Essentially, kind of, they don't have enough money to pay their top executives.

Yeah.

I mean, it seems like it's a tough, tough time for them for sure.

And tough time for everyone.

And Gabe, how did the organization come to this decision?

Well, you know, it was about stability.

It wasn't about, you know, furloughing these folks for the sake of their performance.

That's what the board said.

But, you know, John Williams, who's been the CEO since 2024, is going to take a break.

And Larry Chadwick is going to take over day-to-day operations in the meantime.

But like a lot of nonprofits in the Akron area, you know, they're facing financial challenges, losing federal funding.

I mean, not to plug it, but Ideas from Public Media is a nonprofit that serves the greater Akron area that is losing federal funding.

So, you know, a lot of people are feeling it.

And if you're somebody who's the CEO brought in not too long ago and told you're out of the job now, that's gotta be a difficult pill to swallow.

But also, what will the Urban League do to fulfill its mission?

Does it say that the work goes on.

Yeah, so the work goes on.

They're filling these voids, uh, these, these roles, um, with a vice president, Larry Chadwick, to take over.

But it is interesting to kind of admit that you could go a while without these top executives because it's, it's, um, uh, Williams but also a few others that are being furloughed for the time being.

Okay.

Boards of education meetings used to draw a couple of diehards, cranks, and gadflies.

Now with consolidations and other issues that Conor has just talked about, out.

They're often packed in Lakewood.

The board is changing its meeting days because they conflict with city council meetings, and residents there want to go to both.

They're very engaged.

But it used to be the same 2 days a week or the same time that there might be a council meeting, and now they're saying, okay, we know people want to come, so we're gonna, we're gonna make the calendar sync.

Yeah.

And for me, it makes it difficult.

My Mondays, now you're working every night, are very busy usually, you know.

Uh, but yeah, you know, so this is changing when they're meeting.

And as we've seen at Lakewood Schools board meetings, they've been pretty they've been contentious over the last year because the district is working on this big consolidation plan.

They say, you know, we've lost enrollment over the years and we really need to we want to cut down on the number of elementary schools we've got.

And residents are saying, wait a minute, this could really hurt walkability.

This could hurt the vitality of not just, you know, our neighborhoods, but the whole city itself.

We love being known as this walkable city.

And so what do you mean, you know, my preschool is going to be moved from my kid's school to a centralized location?

So, and now to give them a voice, the, the school board is saying, okay, we're not going to have meetings the same time as council because the same people might want to have something to say at both.

Yeah.

There's also another issue involving Lakewood students, and that is the city's Youth Council is now open to younger residents, those entering grades 8 through 12.

What is the Youth Council, and what did they announce this week in Lakewood City Council?

Yeah, so, uh, students can weigh in with their perspectives on current city issues, and, and, and I love that idea.

You know, wonderful.

Now it's open to younger residents, those entering grades 8 through 12.

And the idea is, you know, these are the kids that are affected by these decisions.

We really need to open it up to them.

Okay, cool.

Ohio Attorney General Andy Wilson is suing Roblox, accusing the online gaming platform of misleading investors and failing to adequately protect children from predators and sexual content.

Karen, I don't know anything about this.

Probably Conor does because you guys are gamers, I don't know much about the platform, but what they're basically saying is what was represented by, by the company, what was misrepresented.

Well, yeah, and Roblox has been the subject of a lot of discussion about child predators and sexual content on the platform.

And the lawsuit that was filed by Ohio, Ohio hopes to lead a class action lawsuit on this was that basically that Roblox misled investors and it lied about the methods and things that they were putting in place to protect kids from predators and from sexual content.

And so when those things actually went into place, these age-restricted accounts and things like that, the value of Roblox really dropped dramatically because the company stopped growing.

There was less growth on the platform.

And so that cost a lot of money for investors.

And 2 investors are the Ohio Teachers the Ohio Public Employees Retirement System and the State Teachers Retirement System, those 2 pension funds.

And that's where Ohio says that they're looking at the problem because they feel that $21.5 million that those funds lost in Roblox was related to this.

So that's where Ohio kind of works into this.

Roblox has faced lawsuits from other states as well.

And so this is just another problem that the online gaming platform has dealing with.

I would never think there'd be an intersection of an online gaming platform and the state teachers' retirement system, but there it is.

Yep, exactly.

It's, it's, it's really interesting to, to see the arguments here.

And again, Roblox was long talked about as being a problem area, but they did put these things in place to try to protect kids and age safety accounts and things like that.

But The question is whether that was a problem in terms of the money that was lost.

Okay.

President Trump visited Northeast Ohio Tuesday for the inaugural Patriot Games, a high school athletic competition bringing 120 athletes from across the country to Ashtabula County.

And I saw a little bit of it on TV last night.

It was on Channel 5, I think.

It was an ABC half hour's worth, I guess.

I was walking by, but it was on the television.

What are the Patriot Games, Conor?

Yeah, it's a 3-day competition earlier this week that brought together high school athletes ages 14 to 17.

They competed in a bunch of different challenges and also football, basketball, soccer, track, tug-of-war.

It was like a military-inspired boot camp.

It was very patriotic.

You saw flags and fireworks and sparks and everything as President Trump got there.

This was created by a Trump-backed, uh, organization, the Freedom 250.

It's a public-private organization that was also that also hosted that UFC event on the White House on.

This is not the America 250 organization, which is the bipartisan, uh, organization that's created by Congress back in 2016, uh, that, uh, you know, they're creating separate events entirely.

And this is kind of a very Trump patriots, you know, athleticism, let's celebrate our American youth, you know, kind of, uh, focused event.

And a couple of winners there, Kennadi Fuhrman representing Kansas, Rockwell Myers who represented Utah.

They the winners of that competition.

For those kids, the politics probably is not part of all this.

There's a lot of political stuff about it, but if you're a kid that's out there at the Spire Academy in Ashtabula County, it's a big honor.

However, the process at which some of these students arrived at was a little some folks are questioning it as well.

It was almost like they had to kind of prove their patriotism in order order to participate.

Right.

Okay.

A new trail on Cleveland's west side is giving folks in Kamm's Corner easier access to the Rocky River Valley and the region's larger trail network.

And Conor, I used to walk down that road.

It's by Fairview Hospital.

You'd go down there to get to Little Met Golf Course.

It was taking your life into your own hands, this narrow road.

Now this beautiful trail that's down there, MetroParks is saying this is really going to open things up for that neighborhood.

Yeah, it's about 3/10 of a mile long, so not super long, but it creates the safer connection between Kamm's Corner and the Rocky River Valley over near you there, Micah.

And Metroparks says it links thousands of residents to this nearly 33 miles of this Emerald Necklace Trail.

Really beautiful part of the, of the, of the, the, the region there.

Yep.

And it was, uh, the Cleveland Metroparks, Cuyahoga County, the City of Cleveland, Cleveland Clinic Fairview Hospital, and West Park Cam's Neighborhood Development all getting together on that.

All right, we are now going to head to PorchRokr.

At least I'm going to head there tomorrow.

Tomorrow is the 14th annual PorchRokr.

More than 100 musical will perform across 40 stages in Akron's Highland Square neighborhood every hour on the hour from 11 to 6.

The headliner actually, and then after that, the headliner is at 7:30, Rent for Cheryl at the main stage.

It'll close out the festival.

And that's at Elmore Avenue and South Portage Path.

The festival will also have a beer garden, kids zone, karaoke, silent auction, food trucks, and vendors.

And some of our Ideastream Public Media staff will be there, including me, at a booth right next to the main stage.

Stop by and say hi.

I'll be there from 3 to 5 at the booth and then wandering around the neighborhood listening listening to great music after that.

Stephanie Haney will announce the first main stage act at 11 AM.

And if you're looking to avoid traffic, the Metro RTA will be free for folks headed to PorchRokr.

You can go online and find out all the information about that.

And you can go to ideastream.org to listen to PorchRokr 2026, a playlist created by Amanda Rabinowitz and Brittany Nader, host and producer of Shuffle, IdeaStream's music podcast.

You can check out yesterday's episode as well.

Gabe, you and I hung out there.

Was it last year or 2 years ago?

Yeah, it was last year.

And I was there too.

Yeah, it's a lot of fun.

It's a bunch of folks.

I can't recommend it enough.

Shout out to Ghost Slime, who's going to be performing again.

They were sliming people in the audience.

That was awesome.

Fabulous.

Well, listen, I'll see you there.

And Karen, it's not that long a drive for you.

Meet me in Akron tomorrow, will you?

I that would be great.

Is it going to rain?

Because I'd like to escape the rain.

Listen, we're rockers, man.

We're punk rockers.

We don't care if it rains.

All right, well, we'll go inside if there's lightning.

I can catch a Guardians game after that, I guess.

Okay, fair.

Yeah.

Listen, great talking to all of you guys today.

Enjoy your weekend, whatever it is you may be doing, and that's all for today.

If you missed any part of today's show, you can hear a rebroadcast tonight at 9 on 89.7 WKSU.

Find it on any podcast app.

You can watch the television version tonight at 5 on WVIZ PBS.

And Monday on The Sound of Ideas, it's a new installment of Law of The Land looking at a legal challenge to the Trump administration's efforts to overhaul the student loan system.

I'm Mike McIntyre.

Thank you so much for listening and watching, and stay safe.

And now our closing song for today, Sway by PorchRokr headliner Rent for Cheryl.