The state auditor said East Cleveland's books are such a mess, a receiver should step in to control the finances.

The city's mayor says not so fast.

A grand jury decided no criminal charges should be file against an Akron police officer in the shooting death of a teen.

And a state lawmaker is pushing a bill that would require all public school students to watch a fetal development video every year.

Ideas is next.

Hello, and welcome to ideas.

I'm Mike McIntyre.

Thank you for joining us.

East Cleveland is considering filing a lawsuit to block a planne push by Ohio Auditor Keith Faber to put the city's finances under contro of a court appointed receiver.

Faber said the city's finances have been a mess for decades.

East Cleveland' mayor is fighting receivership, and the city may file suit to stop it.

His opponent in November' election, who served as interim mayor before him, says the help should be welcomed.

A grand jury heard evidence and declined to press criminal charges against the Akron police officer, who shot and killed 15 year old Jasmine Tucker last year.

A community organizing grou characterized it as the system declaring black lives in Akron disposable.

A conservative lawmaker, a Republican, has proposed a bill that woul require public school students watch a fetal development video every year from third grade.

Opponents say the video is propaganda Joining me to discuss these stories and more from industry and public media.

Akron Canton reporter Anna Huntsman and supervising producer of newscast Glenn Forbes from Columbus.

Statehouse News bureau chief Karen Kasler let's get ready to round table.

Ohio auditor Keith Faber this week formally requested the state attorney general begin legal proceedings to appoint a receiver to overse the finances of East Cleveland.

A new state law, approved as part of the last budget and which went into effect Tuesday, allows the move.

east.

Cleveland is pushing back, accusing the state of cutting off local governmen funds to the city, contributing to its financial woes.

In saying the state commission appointed to guide finances during the city's fisca emergency years flat out failed.

Glenn, what does it mean to be in receivership?

Yeah, essentially what happens under this new law is just part of the new state budget.

The auditor of state, as you mentioned, Keith Faber, he can refer a city like East Cleveland who's been under fiscal fiscal supervision for a while to the Ohio attorney General and have a receiver appointed.

The Ohio Court of Claims would then appoint someone.

And then that person pretty much takes over all financial decisions for the city.

In fact, the East Cleveland law director, Kenneth Myers, says the receiver has broad powers, unlimited onl limited by a judge in Columbus.

So he comes in, he h or she comes in, they take over.

Obviously they can cut spending.

They can raise taxes, they can put a plan in place.

There's all kinds of things that apparently that they can do.

And again, is the law director of East Cleveland says it's somewhat unlimited only only by a judge in Columbus.

So what East Cleveland is talking about i this law director Ken Myers said maybe we should file suit to block that.

Yeah, that's and from fro the reporting from idea streams.

Matt Richman, my understanding is, is that is kind of the only way to stop it.

The mayor, the current mayor, Latif Shabazz, did kind of write a strongly worded letter, and he pointed out a number of things that he believes the state did to make this situation worse.

In some ways, even said enabl eight years of theft and fraud.

And then you're now you're going to invoke this receivership to punish, the city of East Cleveland.

So, interestingly enough I mean, their deficits went from about $6 million in 201 to now, upwards of $100 million.

So a lot of that according to the city, or is the the settlements that have been made due to lawsuits against police officers there.

Right.

And that's that's also according to, to, the auditor, Keith Faber.

So you've got an interesting, situation here.

And, oh, by the way, in about another month, East Cleveland has to elect a new mayor.

And interestingly enough, Latisha Bass, who's the current mayor, was council president.

The interim mayor was Sandra Morgan.

She was appointed by a court.

This was going on while, Brandon King was under investigation, ultimatel convicted of corruption charges.

Sandra Morgan, the former mayor, is in favor of the receivership.

The teacher bears the current mayor.

As we mentioned, is not in favor of the receivership.

So it will be interesting to see kind of how this plays out.

Sandra Morgan in the primary did receive a fair number of votes more than Leticia Bass, but they will square off in November as the top two vote getters.

And this could be an issue for campaign issue for the next month.

I know that the council member, Pat Vlahovic, who calls into the show and sends emails often during the roundtable, has sent us some pre emails, basicall aligning with, the Shabazz camp and saying that the stat shouldn't come in and kind of, you know, swing the acts and that there were a lot of things that the state did to contribute to this.

There's not county money that comes in.

There's not a state local government fund money.

And all of those types of things.

But you're seeing a bit of a dichotomy there, because then you also saw, other folks, including Sandra Morgan and, Juanita Brant, who was a state representative, saying this kind of receivership, this kind of control might help East Cleveland to climb out of this financial hole.

Right now, they're spending 12 million a year and taking in 11 million.

So clearly something's not right.

And maybe someone else needs t come in and clean up the books.

Yeah.

I mean, the state's position is you've been under fiscal supervision for most of the last 40 years, and now it's kind of time to come and clean it up East.

Cleveland's position is, well, we've been under this fiscal supervision and we've have had some state, intervention, if you will, and that hasn't gone well either.

They think the, Financial Supervisors Authority kind of allowed, some of this corruption to happen with the former mayor, Brandon King.

So East Cleveland saying, look, we are already under some fiscal supervision.

It's not working now, under your watch.

It wasn't working.

Now you can't come in and d even more and kind of take over.

They've been 13 years in fiscal emergency.

They've been in other times, in fiscal emergency, 17 years from September 88th through February of 2006, but most recently 13 years of fiscal emergency.

When that happens, there is this commission that is supposed to look over the finances and the city's makin what sounds like a fair point.

The deficit was this at one point.

Now it's ballooned to this.

While you have a council, a panel that's supposed to be in charge of this, what are they doing?

Right.

And again, as you mentioned, the state's position is most of that is the civil judgments, I believe 60 to 70 million of that $100 million deficit is newish.

Civil settlements, against the East Cleveland Police Department.

But city is saying, listen, there was $6 million in water infrastructure funds and only 650,000 of that is accounted for.

As I mentioned, they believe that they kind of enabled some of the corruption from from former mayors and former office holders there.

So their contention is not only is some of this money that you were supposed to be, monitoring, not only is some of that missing, but you enabled some of these conditions that that allowed this to happen.

We do have an email as I mentioned, from from Pat.

Who is a council member?

Pablo.

Obviously, she said receivership would have made more sense before we finally got rid of convicted former Mayor Brandon King, who the auditor of state knew was spending money there, hadn't been appropriated at least five years ago.

It would have made more sense when all of those police were still abusing victims who were going to sue us.

It would have made more sense when the King administration was still giving contracts to his friends.

And, note that they tried unsuccessfully to have King recalled more than once.

So, her her point and at the same with the shape of the administration is now that we're in place.

And and she agrees that, that Letty Shabazz is cleaning out East Cleveland City Hall now and making it a better place now is when they decide to come in with receivership which is just the wrong timing.

And I think we should also mention, Mike in you've covered this town for a lot of years.

I've covered this town for a lot of years.

The residents there are concerned that if the state comes in again with more power, they'll kind of do what they want.

They could tax some people out of the area and kind of use some of that real estate development.

That is just some of what the residents are saying is if they come and take over, we might have to leave because we're not going to be able to afford to live here.

And then, you know, we'll se what's what's going to happen.

That's a concern on on some in council, too.

There's, there was a councilman that said, you know, there's a table where they decide things and then there's kind of a table where they, they, they let you have, what we wish of a can discussion.

But you're not there for this, but you're not there for the decision.

Exactly.

A Summit County grand jury decided yesterday to press no criminal charges against a police officer who shot and killed 15 year old Jasmine Tucker last year.

Attorneys for Tucker's family said the decision after the teen was shot in the back and medical aid was delayed could have a chilling effect on the community.

and remind us of the details surrounding this shooting.

Sure.

So this was last year.

It was on Thanksgiving.

What we knew going into it was two officers were responding to something else in the area of the Miller South School when they reportedly heard gunshots in the area.

So, when this was all unfolding, we didn't have much from the body cam because you might remember, the officer did not turn on their body cam.

So they pursued, who we now know was 15 year old Jasmine Tucker.

Two of the officers did fired shots into his back, as told by the autopsy.

And, waited to render medical aid for about 7 or 8 minutes.

And he was pronounced dead pretty much immediately.

So while going throug now that the BCI investigation has wrapped up, I was going through some of the files and we now know a little bit more about what was going on.

So Officer Davo Fields says he heard the shots and thought that there was somebody was injured.

And so he wanted to go respond.

And he saw Jasmine walking away.

And so he wanted he thought this person had just shot someone.

That someone was i the parking lot, of the school.

So he wanted to you know, see what was going on.

And he said in his interview that as Jasmine was walking away he reached toward his waistband.

And so Davon Fields officer thought there was a gun and he was going to shoot.

And so he shot Jasmine.

That's what we have now learned, and we don't see that part on the, on the body cam.

The body cam shows events preceding.

And yet even after that.

But we don't see that incident.

Right.

So that's why it was I couldn't wait to kind of go through the files because I was wondering, okay, so what did he say?

Kind of led up to this.

And so that's what he said.

He also said that, the the officers asked the or I should say the investigators asked, you know, how do you know he wasn't just pulling up his pants and he said it looked like he was reaching for a gun.

I've seen people reach for gun, basically, is what he said.

I will say a gun was recovered from Jasmine, but it was in his zipped.

Jacket.

And we also learned through the files that the gun was not registered to Jasmine or anyone in his family at this point.

It was someone, who they, the officers interviewed, and she said, oh, I thought that was stolen in 2023.

So we don't really know much about that.

Which helps to answer a question that Claudia has.

She said.

The news reports regarding the shooting of Jasmine Tucker have noted that the young man was found to have a gun in his pocket.

Is there a reason why this was unlawful?

Isn't carrying a gun legal?

If so, why is this offered as a relevant fact?

Well, it's a relevant fact because he was shot by police who said they thought he was reaching for a gun and a gun was found on him.

But secondly, it wasn't a licensed gun that he was allowed to carry.

He was also 15.

You can't carry, you can't carry a gun at the age of 15.

But I appreciate the question.

Claudia.

So thi when this type of thing happens and we've seen this in the past, obviously in, in Akron, the city is on alert to mak sure that that things are safe.

People are going to be angry.

We heard from the NAACP, which which derided this and said, we don't understand it.

If somebody get shot twice in the back.

And yet we're saying this is not a criminal case.

We heard this from, Freedom Black, which is a community organization.

Who were the ones that said, this basically is saying that Black Lives are expendable and disposable in, in Akron.

What did the city do to prepare for that?

What was the response from the mayor and the police chief, to this no bill indict or there's no non indictment.

Yeah, they they said that they they promised that there's going to be a departmental investigation.

So that's what happens now.

There's n criminal charges on the officer, but the Akron Police Department will do its own internal investigation.

And then after that wraps up, the Citizens Police Oversight Board will also do an investigation to figure out if policies were followed.

So some of the things that they'll be looking at, which the mayor, called out right after the shooting, was why didn't they activate thei body camera, things like that?

Or was the policy leading up to the chase?

Well, you know, the department policies, but they also urged the public to be calm.

But they did acknowledge that they they knew that this would be hard for many people to hear.

So, I haven't heard of any major demonstrations at this point.

There was a small protest outside the courthouse yesterday.

But as you mentioned, there has already been reaction from the community.

I get this sense of I think even Judy Hill said something to this of the NAACP said something to this effect of what' it going to take to get justice?

When are we going to see justice?

If not, you know, this 15 year old being shot in the back, when is there ever going to be justice essentially is kind of the the feelin I'm hearing from the community.

And one of the things that I heard from the mayor's office was, we will respect your freedom of speech and we'll protect your right to to protest loudly.

But if you damage anything, we're not standing for that right?

Yeah.

They said no No violence or property damage.

I should also say that the, city is actually in the.

And the department police department are actually in the process of reviewing how the police department responds to protesters.

Because there was a big lawsuit a couple of years ago after the, protests with after Jalen Walker, another young black man shot by police in Akron.

And there was, you know, basically the, the court saying you need to fix this crowd control policy.

There needs to be some sort of mediation here because there was, some, you know, use of tear gas and things like that.

So they're kind of in the middle of figuring that out as well.

So, time will tell really what happens here.

And then you mentioned that there will be a departmental investigation.

You might have delved into this, but I want to get a little bit deeper.

How does the Citizen's Police Oversight Board figure into that?

Yeah, that's a great question, Mike, because a lot of people even again, I think, Judy Hil said this yesterday, you know, let's, let's she said something like, let's be real here.

They they don't have much power, which is true.

The Citizens Police Oversight Board at this point can really only provide recommendations.

So the city has an independen police auditor, Anthony Finnell.

He will handle going through the files and kind of issuing his own recommendations to the police department.

And he's made many recommendations, a lot of similar recommendations throughout the last two years as I've been following this.

And so people are saying, but the police department doesn't have to implement them, the city doesn't have to implement them.

So, they are the cit is doing a use of force review.

They recently hired a firm to do this.

So there could be some changes on the department's use of force policy coming down the pike.

But at this point, really all the they are allowed to do is kind of provide these recommendations unless they would go back to the voters and ask for more power.

Okay.

The Ohio Senate voted this week to outlaw replacement and emergency property tax levies, provisions that were included in the state budget, but crossed out with governor Mike DeWine veto pen.

The Senate overrode the vetoes and restored them.

The House voted the same way this summer.

Karen, why do lawmakers want replacemen and emergency levies eliminated?

Well, Republicans are the one who want these kinds of levies eliminated because they fields property tax relief.

They said that it would help people who are struggling to pay their property taxes because of rising home values and other factors here, and they suggest the district are putting up emergency levies without there being an actual emergency, because they're easier pas than regular operating levies, and also putting up renewal levies because they reset the amount they can.

I'm sorry.

Replacement levies, rather, because they reset the amount that can they can collect by replacing existing levies with updated property values.

So all of this is I mean, school districts are operating under what the law has allowed them to do in terms of bringing in more money.

And there was a report out recently from Howard Fleenor, who, who's the school funding expert in Ohio, and Greg Browning, who was governor.

George Voinovich is budget director.

And they said that Ohio has the eighth highest property tax rate in the nation, because not that schools are spending lots of money but because of the state share has dropped so muc that they've had to go to voters with levies and requests like this.

And so all of this is coming in an environment where, the legislature is trying to find a way to do property tax relief without the stat spending a lot of money for it.

And, these these are the kin of things that we've seen here.

Yeah, we've heard from, some of the Republican lawmakers that this was necessary because there's this outcr for eliminating property taxes.

So we've got to do something, and this is something.

But then you heard from the Democratic side, not one person's property tax bill will go dow as a result of these new rules.

Well, and this will not take effect until after the electio that is happening in next month.

So that's important.

But yeah, it doesn't do anything to change what is in existence.

It's all going forward kinds of things.

And yeah, there is this, property tax working group that governor Mike DeWine put together after he vetoed 67 items in the state budget, including several related to property taxes, because he really want lawmakers to come up with ways that actually d lower people's property taxes, but do not punish schools and local communities because they're the ones that need the property tax revenue to operate.

Again, schools, law enforcement, libraries, zoos, all sorts of things that rely on property taxes.

There is, as you hinted there, this idea that, there could be a constitutiona amendment on next year's ballot that would abolish all property taxes.

There's a volunteer group out there right no gathering signatures for that.

That would be a huge and unprecedented move, because it would really throw the entire system into chaos.

In terms of how do you keep these things going without property taxes that fund them?

Jonathan sends an email.

He says, it seems to me that capping increases the taxable appraisal value at the rate of inflation would cut back on inside millage increases and new levies, while not cutting funding from services that rely on that money, is the state House that set on their agenda that that sat on their agenda, that they can't support a common sense answer unless it hurts someone they don't like.

And that's Jonathan's point.

And interestingly, there are a number of ideas.

Maybe he could have been in that working group and said, hey, what about this?

They came up with, with, I think, 20 recommendations.

One of them i a deferral program for seniors and a circuit breaker.

What are those?

Yeah, circuit breaker is the kind of thing that would trigger when you have a certain level of income.

Then it would say that you wouldn't be able you wouldn't have to pay above that income.

This is something that's worked in other states.

All of this, there's all these recommendations, some of which lawmakers have already considered and not acted on, because some of these bills, including the circuit breaker, including property tax freezes, all homestead tax exemption, all this stuff has come up in previous sessions of the General Assembly and has not moved forward.

And so the question now is whether this group that made these recommendations to governor Mike DeWine, who says he's going to take them to the legislature, whether some of these ideas can move forward.

And I think this struggle continues between ideas that the state would have to put some money toward to make happen, versus ideas that basically would have most of the cost of property tax relief being absorbed by school districts and local entities that use those property tax levies to keep funding.

Anti-abortio lawmakers have sponsored a bill that would require Ohio's public school students to watch a short vide each year on fetal development.

Karen, what's the idea behind the bill and the baby?

Olivia video?

Well I mean, this bill is politically charged no matter how you look at it.

I mean, I know Republicans are saying that, and it's a very small group of conservative Republicans who are sponsoring this.

They're saying this will give science based, accurate information on early fetal development to kids from third grade to high school, as you said, and it's an annual thing.

But the vide that's specifically referenced in the legislation, this Meet Baby Olivia video, was produced by an anti-abortion group.

And the legislatio really says that information and other things that come with this curriculum cannot be obtained from groups that talk about alternatives, including abortion.

And so this is definitely an effort to try to get the message of what they're trying to say here out into public schools.

And, you know, this is a bill specifically aimed at public school students.

There was a a, amendment to the Constitution that was passed, almost 60% of people saying that abortion rights, and reproductive rights should be enshrined in the Constitution.

The folks that were behind that and the people that are, that are, for abortion rights have called this propaganda.

Yeah.

And I mean, you know, you still have in the bill the idea that parents can opt out.

But, I mean, the idea that this bill was unveiled with representatives from the center for Christian Virtue and Right to Life right there alongside really sugges that this is this this is a bill that anti-abortion advocates really want to see.

And it's just it's passed in other states, has passed in other Republican led states.

And I just think it's really interesting to note that the video that they specifically mentioned in the bill they showed at the press conference is provided by an anti-abortion group.

And it even say at the beginning of the video, because it shows from fertilization through birth.

It says at the moment of conception, this is where life begins.

And that's a statement that certainly has generated a lot of discussion about whether it's actually should be in law stating that that's the truth.

And it's not jus this particular film and the law that would require i to be showed, but to be shown.

But since 2023, when the amendment was passed we've seen a number of measures involving restrictions on abortion or other types of issues, waiting periods, other thing that are still being litigated.

Right, exactly.

And I mean, this is sens that, constitutional amendment, no laws were removed fro the books dealing with abortion.

I mean, that that law did not that constitutional amendment now is the subject of all this litigation over things like what you just said, even including the six week ban on abortion that's still being litigated.

So it's been very frustratin for advocates for reproductive rights who have said voter made their voice clear on this.

And yet legislation is still going forward.

I mean, we just had a bill recently introduced that would do a 24 hour waiting period, even as the existing 24 hou waiting period is in the courts.

And what about other bills that are, that are in place including one that would defund Planne Parenthood, Planned Parenthood?

Yeah, again, these are all just the legislature had made it clear, even after that amendment passed in 2023, that there was no plan to change the trajectory.

The Republicans are in the super majority, and they're clearly anti-abortion as a group.

And so they've been moving forward with legislation that they feel represent that side and had no interest in starting to pull bac on legislation and existing law that abortion rights advocate say really will not stand under the amendment.

Now, all of this goes forward to the Ohio Supreme Court, which right now has one Democrat, and the rest of Republicans, some of whom who have said publicly that they support the ide that life begins at conception.

And so that really makes a lot of abortion rights advocates concern as they bring these cases to the Ohio Supreme Court.

Akron based Summa Healt has transitioned to a for profit hospital system after the completion of its sale to the Health Assurance Transformation Corporation.

HECO.

Anna.

The proponents for the sale say it will stabilize operations.

There will be money that comes in.

Detractors are still not convinced because it's for profit.

Right.

And they're saying other places have been down this road before and it hasn't always worked out in the best way.

Basically, the main opposition is that this is going to be all about profits, obviously for profit.

But, could that mean things like cuts to staff?

Could that mean things like selling off buildings, doing anythin to make a little bit more money?

Right.

You know, raising prices of health care.

So, that's kind of what we're hearing from the opposition.

But as you mentioned, the executives, summa health leaders have said kind of from the beginning that this is what we need.

If you want to continue to have summa health in your community, they need to stabilize, they need to keep staff.

And so they're saying that by having this, go forward, this is how they'r going to stay in the community.

Yeah.

Cliff Delaney, the CEO, said it would let them take bold steps to modernize and expand access to ensure summa health remains strong for decades to come.

There's also the issue of, where some foundation money might go.

And that's something that the attorney general stepped in and, and said, this has to be a provision.

What was that about?

Yeah.

So he said in order for him and in his department to approve this sale, they they asked for $30 million, to be placed in the, a new nonprofit, basically a foundation.

And so 15 million of that cash, 15 million in stock.

And so they did agree to do that.

And the foundation is called Trailhead Community Health Foundation of Greater Akron.

And they say they're going to invest these funds into local health initiatives.

Okay.

Monday o the Sound of Ideas on 89 seven.

KSU Stephanie Haney leads a discussion about wher abortion access stands in Ohio, where reproductive rights have been enshrine in the Constitution since 2023.

In light of new proposal at the state and federal level.

I'm Mike McIntyre.

Thank you so much for watching and stay safe.