It's the Sound of Ideas Reporters' Roundtable from Ideastream Public Media.

I'm Mike McIntyre.

Welcome and thanks for joining us.

This won't be the last time we talk about the midterm elections here, but it is the last time before Election Day.

Yes, the campaigning will finally be over Tuesday.

We'll discuss the final push, including federal election monitors in Medina and Cuyahoga Counties, And groups like the American Civil Liberties Union also vowing to keep a vigilant watch at the polls.

A new plan to develop the Cleveland lakefront was rolled out this week.

Where the Browns now play is envisioned as a public park.

And speaking of where the Browns now play, Cleveland City Council took an unprecedented stand this week, refusing to fund repairs on a facility the public owns.

Flock cameras continue to be in the news.

Akron says it will restrict outside searches of its flock data And Cleveland schools voted to end its Flock contract.

High school football playoffs start tonight.

Cleveland powerhouse Glenville won't be playing.

The Ohio High School Athletic Association disqualified them.

University hospitals have been treating patients the old school way as a cyberattack is still hampering computer systems, including MyChart access.

And daylight saving time ends Sunday, meaning the clocks will fall back.

In practical terms, an extra hour to eat Halloween candy on Saturday night.

And joining me to talk about all the news this week from Ideastream Public Media, health reporter Ida Lieszkovszky and local government reporter Sean McDonnell.

Good to see both of you.

Good to be here.

Thanks for having me.

All right, good to have you.

And at the Statehouse News Bureau, which is in the basement of the Ohio Statehouse where there are no windows and therefore no daylight to save, reporter Sarah Donaldson joins us.

Hey, Sarah.

Hey, who knows if it's dark out?

Or light or day or night.

I get it.

I visited there last week.

Agreed.

All right.

You can weigh in on the election or any of our other stories today by sending email to soi@Ideastream.org.

And let's get ready to roundtable.

The U.S.

Department of Justice is sending 1,000 election monitors to all 50 states for the midterms next week.

In Ohio, the feds will be monitoring elections in Franklin County, home of Columbus, and locally in Medina and Cuyahoga Counties.

And Sean, federal monitors aren't unusual, but they're or way more this year across the nation.

Yeah, it is normal to send monitors, but Karen Kasler reported this is the largest ever election monitoring effort.

There's gonna be 1,000 monitors deployed.

That's more than double compared to the 2022 midterms.

We should note monitors were at the Cuyahoga Board of Elections in 2020, 2022, and 2024.

So it's not entirely unusual.

And I heard the Franklin County monitor, Franklin County Board of Elections director, where monitors haven't been recently, telling people it's not a big deal.

This is a usual occurrence.

Big cities generally and big counties is where this kind of thing happens, and that you might not even know that there are federal monitors there.

They'll likely be in plainclothes.

But what exactly are the monitors there to do?

They're there to just observe and ensure that voting rights laws like the Voting Rights Act and the National Voter Registration Act are followed.

They'll they've said that they're not going to intervene and that you might not even notice them.

They're just there to observe and make sure that everything's being followed.

I think people are heightened just because you've heard the president and others say that there's going to be fraud if our team doesn't win, and so they're worried that this is sort of a way to stack against that.

But again, this is a normal, usual thing where monitors are out.

But you're also seeing a number of groups that aren't the federal government that say they're too going to be monitoring.

The NAACP, the American Civil Liberties Union of Ohio, and Common Cause said that they're all going to deploy volunteers.

Yeah, they're going to deploy their own monitors, and they have a phone line that if you ignore is that if you see a voting rights issue, that you can report it.

So they have an election protection hotline.

It's 866-OUR-VOTE, or you can email votemonitor@naacpnet.org.

And so if you're out there and you see something that you think is a voting rights issue, you can reach out to them.

Hmm.

So in a Truth Social post on Monday, President Trump said he's gonna offer big reward money, like big money, for anyone that can point out voter fraud that leads to some sort of a, conviction for it.

What exactly is he offering and what is he looking for?

He went on Truth Social and he said that you can get $1 million upon the arrest and conviction of those that created the fraud.

Now, we should say Trump has repeatedly made unfounded claims that there was widespread voter fraud in past elections.

There hasn't been any evidence of this.

But he went out, he said that you would get $1 million if you turn somebody in and they got convicted.

There's no word on where this money would come from or any real details of this.

Yeah.

Nationwide, when we look at voter fraud, it's literally literally infinitesimally small.

There hasn't been some widespread example of this across the country.

And like you said, when, you know, people talk about the idea of voter fraud and they send out these monitors, it just makes people feel like fraud is maybe an issue when it just is not widespread and there isn't evidence of that.

Our Secretary of State, Frank LaRose, has said Ohio does a great job, that it is fraud-free.

It's very limited, although he then has join some of the measures that would create more security for it.

And now he's calling for a federal investigation into Black Fork Strategies.

It's a company that has helped register thousands of Ohio voters following what he said is ‘shady and potentially criminal actions.

Black Fork operates under its trade name Field Forward Ohio.

So, Sarah, what exactly does LaRose want to happen here?

Yeah, so his Election Integrity Unit has sent referrals to both the United States Attorney's Office for the Northern District of Ohio as well as the FBI Investigations Cleveland Field Office.

So I should say the FBI in Cleveland, and they're asking federal law enforcement to independently review and investigate whether this conduct is in violation of federal statute.

And they're also sending this to state and county prosecutors to see if Black Fork is complying with Ohio law.

And it comes after a similar 2024 complaint concerning voter registration forms that Black Fork had submitted to county boards of elections.

So what is he thinking happened here that might be federally criminal in terms of the work that Black Fork's been doing?

So the concern that was flagged here is that it started in Summit County.

The Summit County Board of Elections reported that Field Forward Ohio, which is associated with Black Fork, Fork.

They delivered 6 boxes of about 5,000 voter registration forms on October 5th, 2026.So that was just hours before Ohio's voter registration deadline.

And when election officials in Summit County were going through those forms, they identified that some of those forms had been completed longer than 10 days ago, so that they were, you know, potentially slightly older than they should be when returned to the Board of Elections.

So they're, they're stockpiling 'em, they're getting a bunch and then they're putting 'em in at the last minute.

Apparently that's, that's shady, right?

They've gotta be within that 10 days if you're helping them.

Well, and yeah, so state law, correct.

So state law says a person who helps another person register to vote.

So in this case, these are obviously paid canvassers or volunteer canvassers who are helping other Ohioans register to vote.

If they do that outside of where you're actually registering to vote in person, like at a board of election, they have to return that within 10 days.

So that is state law.

All right.

If you need a lift to the polls, there are several organizations around Northeast Ohio offering free rides to folks who need to vote or drop off their ballot.

Early in-person voting is open today till 7:30, tomorrow Saturday, 8 to 4 PM, and Sunday, 1 to 5 PM.

There will not be early voting on Monday.

On Election Day Tuesday, polling places open at 6:30 AM.

They close at 7:30 PM.

And if you're in line at that time, you do get to vote.

So Sean, some counties' transit systems are offering free rides to the polls.

They really want to make it as easy as possible for people to cast their ballot.

Right, and we have a great wrap-up of all this information on our website with details, but most local transit agencies in many of the counties around Cuyahoga County are offering free rides to people, sometimes to early vote, but definitely on Election Day.

So Lake, Geauga, Summit, and Stark, to name a few.

I did check with the Cleveland RTA this morning And they're not offering free rides on Election Day like they did in the past.

We looked at Wooster, which is looking to have folks there are looking to support those folks after Wayne County had to shut down its transportation program.

They had some money woes there.

What's going on in Wooster?

So in Wooster, because they shut down that transit line, you can call WayGo.

Their dispatch line is 330-800-5210, and you can call them to schedule a ride.

All right.

On Tuesday, tune in to WKSU 89.7 FM from 8 to midnight to catch our election coverage.

It's going to be NPR coverage as well as local coverage with Stephanie Haney and Glenn Forbes as well.

And then you can also check out on WVIZ where we're going to be having PBS coverage from 8 to 11:30 PM.

We'll have some drop-ins there of local news as well from Stephanie Haney.

So do check that out on election night to get all of your information as it goes on.

In the final weeks of the governor's race, data centers have become a central topic.

Democrat Dr.

Amy Acton and Republican Vivek Ramaswamy are showing where they stand on data centers in their campaign ads.

Data centers were a top priority, by the way, of Northeast Ohioans when Ideastream fanned out for office hours at libraries this summer to ask folks what concerned them ahead of the midterms.

And we were surprised to see data centers were so high on that list.

A year before, I think no one had ever heard what a data center was.

Sarah, how are the campaigns using data centers in their advertising now?

Well, Mike, you're completely right.

I've been covering data centers since 2022, and in the last year, that's when you've really seen this public outrage.

And both candidates who obviously neither of them have experience in elected office are trying to hit each other on what they've said on the campaign trail about data centers, on potential investments that either of them have in data centers.

So that's where Ramaswamy is coming at Amy Acton.

He's hitting her on some investments that she had at one time in data centers.

Acton is hitting Ramaswamy on past comments he made about data centers, saying that he's really, you know, excited about the data center boom that Ohio has seen.

And she is calling for a moratorium, a conditional moratorium on data centers.

What does Ramaswamy say about data center development?

So he's more recently said that he opposes property tax breaks for data centers.

He says that they should pay for their own energy and pay electricity costs, not just for, again, the electric that is needed to run those data centers, but also for the electricity costs, um, in surrounding neighborhoods.

More details about how that would actually be paid for, or if companies would be up for that, remain to be seen, of course.

And he said the data centers need to be more transparent with local communities about where they're going to be built, and that those data centers should look at building potentially on, like, brownfields as opposed to farmland.

We talked, maybe it was a couple months back, about how GOP politicos were saying we're getting hammered on data centers.

We've got to take control of that narrative and essentially explain that what we want to do is to regulate them but not to ban them.

That's also a stance, by the way, that the Chamber of Commerce in Cleveland, the Greater Cleveland Partnership, holds.

And you can see with these ads that that's exactly what's playing out.

People are saying, hey, these shouldn't be banned, but we should definitely make sure they create their own energy or pay for themselves, those types of things.

We're seeing that kind of messaging.

Absolutely.

And a lot of this has been very reactionary because, like you said, up until the last couple of months, Ohioans had not been as outraged by these data center developments, or if they did, they weren't being heard.

But certainly candidates at the top of the ticket all the way down to local officials and state lawmakers are certainly trying to figure out what sort of regulations they might need to pass to, um, kind of find themselves back in line with where their constituents are.

Yeah, and it's not just Ohio.

I just heard on Marketplace before our show, Caleigh Wells, who happens to live in Northeast Ohio, was in Alabama talking with people that are adjacent to data centers there.

This is an issue definitely across the nation.

In other governor's race news, the ad we've all been talking about from the Ramaswamy campaign, which President Trump again praised in Ohio yesterday, is no longer airing.

The Associated Press reported that the campaign spent about $1 million on it, a quarter of what Vivek Ramaswamy vowed to spend.

More than $4 million is what he had said.

Pressure had been building on the campaign, including from Governor Mike DeWine and 3,000 alumni of Ramaswamy's high school alma mater.

They all wanted him to take it down.

The ad featured Dr.

Amy Acton's estranged mother, whom she hasn't seen in 5 decades and who sided with the man Acton accused Acton accused of molesting her.

She said that she was a lifelong liar, her mother said, and shouldn't be governor.

So, Sarah, interesting, first of all, that the high school joined the chorus yesterday.

We were hearing a lot of pressure from some Republicans, certainly not the president or the vice president, from Democrats, and now from his classmates from St.

Xavier.

Exactly.

And I should note that the school itself is not involved in the petition that's been circulating.

These are alumni, family, and friends of St.

X High School, which is in Cincinnati.

It's an all-male Jesuit school, which Ramaswamy is a proud graduate of.

He's talked about his time at St.

X. But the petition is asking Ramaswamy to remove the ad, issue a public apology to Acton and her family, and refocus his campaign.

Of course, as we know and as you mentioned, Ramaswamy's doubled down on the ad, as has President Trump and Vice President Vance.

And based on some reporting I've seen, it appears that the ad at this point is being pulled.

It's no longer airing, but the Ramaswamy campaign hasn't commented directly on why that is.

Of course, they spent the $4 million on it.

Maybe that money's run out.

I'm just speculating there.

But of course, a week ago, the ad was being defended.

So it seems like at this point, maybe the ad's run its course, at least in Ramaswamy's campaign's perspective.

It sounds like maybe also it wasn't working the way they thought it might.

There's been a whole lot of backlash on that.

So who knows what that is?

But apparently, The ad is done, and the debate over it, though, I'm sure will continue.

President Trump held a rally in Chillicothe on Wednesday, marking his 3rd public visit to the state just this month.

He made more if Republicans win promises.

And Sean, one of the hefty promises to Ohioans if Jon Husted wins his Senate race was what?

Trump said he would consider bringing the U.S.

Space Academy to Ohio, but again, only if Husted wins.

This is something that Senator Bernie Moreno has been calling for a while, since September, to build it at the Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton.

This would be a billion-dollar investment if it happens.

Trump did issue an executive order on August 28th creating a commission that would tell him where to put this academy.

So it doesn't matter what the commission says, as long as Jon Husted wins, it's coming here?

As long as Jon Husted wins.

I mean, he made similar promises about checks if Republicans keep the Senate and the House.

So it just kind of falls in the same Yeah, you get $5,000 and there are other communities where things are being promised.

It seems unprecedented to me.

I don't know that you're that you're basically saying if this party wins, then you'll get this.

And it was also in regards to settling claims with veterans.

And it said, well, if the Republicans win, if they don't, no money.

If they do and you would think maybe we're talking about the merits of these particular proposals, cases, ideas.

And a lot of these things like the million-dollar bounty for the voter fraud information, the submarine facility that got announced for Cleveland, there's not very many details, right?

Like how this would work when it comes out either.

And the submarine facility was not conditional.

It didn't say if we win, you get it.

He actually just made an announcement that, that the submarine repair facility would be coming to Cleveland.

What did he say about the war with Iran?

He promised it would end soon.

He did not address the high cost of gas during the rally.

Gas prices near the rally were about $4.40 a gallon.

You know, we've seen, you know, the Ohio State House did try and reduce gas prices.

They seem like they shot right back to where they were, even though they took away the taxes on it.

And, you know, affordability and rising costs continue to be top of mind for many voters for this election.

You know, we had a listener who said that they had driven from Ohio into West Virginia and saw a difference of only about $0.10 on a gallon of gas.

Yet Ohio had peeled off.

Much more than that in terms of the gas tax.

So he's thinking, where the heck did that go?

Right.

I remember they had this debate years ago and talking to ODOT and someone said, well, the gas prices aren't necessarily going to jump the next day.

Like when they rate when they raised the gas tax, they didn't necessarily jump by that much the day after.

Vivek Ramaswamy was in attendance in Chillicothe.

What was his message?

He continues to attack Acton for her tenure as the director of the Ohio Department of Health.

He's done this in the past.

You know, he was also there with U.S.

Senator Bernie Moreno, who promised to revitalize paper manufacturing at the former Pixelle Paper Mill in Chillicothe.

You know, Frank LaRose, Auditor Keith Faber, and Robert Sprague were also there at the rally too.

All right.

There are some important local issues on the Cuyahoga County ballot as well on Election Day.

So it's not just these national stories we've been talking about or these big statewide races.

Voters will decide on Issue 11, a health and human services levy.

And you spoke about this yesterday on The Sound of Ideas briefly.

Can you remind us what a ‘yes vote would mean on Issue 11?

So a ‘yes vote would raise property taxes by $87.50 for every $100,000 in home value.

It would also renew another levy that's already existing, and that would give HHS about $111 million for their budget.

Now, whenever you see like meals for seniors, services to help people experiencing homelessness, a lot of the times those services are hoarded by these dollars.

And the Human Health and Services agencies are expecting an $18 million deficit next year if they don't have this levy passed.

All right.

And then there's Issue 10.

That's developmental disabilities.

Very similar story.

So this would raise taxes $79 per $100,000 of home value.

A lot of their budget goes towards the local share of Medicaid costs.

Federal and state funding doesn't cover it fully, and the state recently cut the amount that it contributes.

The board CEO told county council that without any more funding, they could deplete their reserves in the near future.

So you, you reported this week that they are really working hard to raise money to pass these levies, to convince people that these are necessary for the good of the community.

They've raised a lot of money to do that on both of these campaigns.

So the 2 political action committees backing each campaign have raised $1 million.

Cleveland Clinic actually made a $500,000 donation to Issue 11.

In the past, you might look at $300,000, $400,000.

You may buy people yard signs or some billboards.

There isn't a lot of local polling for issues like these, but the political expert I talked to said, you know, this is stuff that used to pass by like 70%, and they're worried with the anti-property tax, you know, sentiment in Ohio that they really need to spend the money to get this to pass this time.

A political thing that you've been following, there's one elected Republican in county government, a county council member.

His name is Mike Gallagher from Strongsville.

He's got a challenger now too, and they're looking to make it a clean sweep, the Democrats.

Yeah, and this is his first challenger since he joined county council in 2010.

So DeWine won this district by 12 points.

DeWine maybe outperformed other Republicans on the ballot, and he's facing Courtney Scheff.

She's a Democrat in North Royalton.

What's really interesting about her is she didn't get involved in local politics until 2021.

She was unhappy with the school board and the city council in North Royalton.

And within 5 years, she managed to recruit candidates and get most of those people out of office.

So it's an uphill battle demographic-wise.

But she's shown that at least as someone recruiting candidates, she's able to flip seats in what you'd consider to be a pretty red city.

Right.

Okay.

Cuyahoga County residents say rising health care costs are a growing concern for them heading into the November, November election.

And Ida, you spoke to residents earlier this week.

Tell us more about what they said in regards to healthcare costs and their vote.

Yeah, so I went out to talk to some voters who were early voting last week at the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections, and most people, the first thing they say is the economy, price of gas, stuff like what we've been talking about.

And then eventually healthcare comes up.

The rising cost of healthcare is a huge concern for a lot of people.

A lot of people are worried that they're not going to be able to afford healthcare in the coming years.

So That's really on people's minds.

And some people also told me that they're a little bit concerned that they haven't heard a lot from the candidates on what they would do around health care.

It seems like the campaign has more been about slinging mud.

Hmm.

How much are health care costs expected to rise this election cycle?

What was the percentage?

So this is an ongoing trend.

Pretty much however you get your health care, you're going to see your premiums rise, costs go up, and your benefits go down.

So small group health insurance rates are expected to rise by 14% for next year.

Prices on the healthcare marketplace, the Affordable Care Act marketplace, are expected to jump 15%.

That's on top of already steep price hikes last year combined with the loss of federal subsidies.

So that's getting pretty expensive.

And then even private insurance costs are expected to go up by more than 8% on average for next year.

And Medicaid is going to be affected as well.

Yeah, Medicaid is going to be a big story next year with work requirements taking effect at the beginning of 2027.

One study estimates that as many as 356,000 Ohioans could drop off the Medicaid rolls in 2027 because they no longer qualify because of those work requirements.

And what are we hearing the candidates say about that?

Because on one side I hear, hey, if people don't have this kind of healthcare like Medicaid, it's going to cost all of us more.

On the other side, we hear people who aren't eligible shouldn't be on the Medicaid rolls.

So what are we hearing in the campaign?

Yeah, so Dr.

Amy Acton has come out in support of Medicaid and Medicare.

She says she supports some work requirements for Medicaid, but worries that people would drop off the rolls and, you know, says you can't work a job if you're worried about being sick or your kid being sick and not being able to get care.

She's also talked about bringing down prescription drug prices and some other things.

And then Vivek Ramaswamy, the Republican candidate, has really emphasized fraud in Medicare and Medicaid and bringing down those fraud rates.

So really a different perspective on that.

And then from the Libertarian candidate, Don Kissick, we've heard that he was focused would be focused on deregulating the healthcare industry.

He thinks there's too much regulation.

Okay, uh, comment from Joshua about our earlier discussion, Sean, about getting people to the polls and getting rides.

He says even though RTA isn't offering free rides, Lutheran Metropolitan Ministries is offering free Uber rides for Cuyahoga County voters, and he's got some information on how to access that.

Um, uh, so we'll have to, uh, to look that up.

It's a little too much for me to read right here, but I'll try to get that information for you before the end of the show.

And we'll be able to let people know that you can get a ride in Cuyahoga County as well through Lutheran Metropolitan Ministries.

And we've got many more things to talk about today, including a cyberattack that has forced university hospitals to deliver care old school and another new plan for Cleveland's lakefront.

First, here's Sound of Ideas host Stephanie Haney, who really loves Halloween, with a preview of what we'll be bringing you next week on The Sound of Ideas on 89.7 WKSU.

Hey, Steph.

Hey there, Mike.

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

We're starting things off on Monday looking at the serious issue of domestic violence, which the rates of domestic violence deaths in Ohio have been high in recent years.

An investigation from our colleagues at the Cincinnati Enquirer and the Columbus Dispatch found that most of those deaths involve firearms and that 1 in 3 of them were committed with a firearm that the perpetrator was not supposed to legally have based on state or federal law.

So we'll talk with them about their findings.

Also on Monday, we'll learn about a new organization called Timmy's Hope.

This organization helps care for people's pets while they're admitted to inpatient treatment facilities for addiction issues.

We all know there's a big day coming up.

I'm not talking about Halloween, which is a very important holiday.

I am talking about Election Day.

Because of that, Stephanie Haney actually had to take off.

I'm Cobra Kai in for her.

Don't worry, she's not in any danger.

She's just preparing for election coverage, which we'll be bringing you next week.

Tuesday on The Sound of Ideas, Drew Maziasz will be filling in for Stephanie for our election pre-show, if you will.

We'll be talking with Glenn Forbes, our deputy editor of news, about the coverage you'll find at Ideastream to keep you informed as those results start to roll in.

Stephanie will be handling coverage in the evening on WKSU and WVIZ.

Then on Wednesday, it's our post-election show where we start to get those results and really look at what they mean here for Northeast Ohio.

And on Thursday, we round things out with our Shuffle music podcast, bringing you backstage to Northeast Ohio's independent music scene.

Back to you in the studio, Mike.

Thank you, Stephanie.

You're back with The Sound of Ideas Reporters Roundtable from Ideastream Public Media.

I'm Ideastream's editor-in-chief, Mike McIntyre.

I'm joined today by Ideastream's Sean McDonnell and Ida Lieszkovszky, along with Ideastream's Statehouse News Bureau reporter Sarah Donaldson in Columbus.

Real quick, what's your costume this year, Ida?

I don't have a costume this year, but I can tell you my son is going as Harry Potter and my daughter is a little witch.

Oh, perfect.

Sean?

No costume this year.

We did hold a bald party last year.

Everybody was a different bald character of some sort.

We had a couple of people dressed like Pitbull, which was fun, but nothing this year.

And you were, you were obviously Dwayne The Rock Johnson.

I was trying to be Mr.

Clean, and then somebody showed up as a more handsome Mr.

Clean, and I was just like a bald guy.

No good.

Sarah, what were you what are you going to be?

Or, or give us some sort of Halloween essence from you.

Yeah.

So I actually already wore my costume because in Columbus we do trick-or-treat on the Thursday before Halloween, which everyone else finds very strange.

So my husband and I were Army soldiers because My husband buys a lot of military surplus as part of his regular everyday outfit, so he has a lot of random military gear.

So I wore some of that.

Very good.

And I clearly am Frank from It's Sunny in Philadelphia.

I am, I am Danny DeVito.

All right.

Glenville's legendary football machine has been benched just ahead of the high school playoffs.

The Ohio High School Athletic Association said on the eve of the playoffs that the school is disqualified while the OHSAA looks closer at allegations.

That ineligible students played on its team.

And Sean, the issue involves student athletes who attend the charter school Ginn Academy.

It's run by Glenville's legendary football coach Ted Ginn.

They play for Glenville's team, and Ginn Academy doesn't offer sports.

So what's the issue?

The issue is that Cleveland has open enrollment, but if you do go to this charter school, which is associated with CMSD, you then have to play sports at the high school closest to where you live.

To where you live, not closest to where the academy is.

Yeah, not closest to where the academy is.

So if you lived over by John Marshall, but you went to go to Ginn Academy, you're supposed to play at John Marshall.

So there are a number of students, athletes we saw from the OHSAA that would qualify here, that should play at another school given their geography, right?

So the Ohio High School Athletic Association said they've already confirmed that many players on this team should have been playing at other schools.

They said they're still looking to see how extensive this issue is.

And it looks like they're not just looking at the fact that the school or the team did something wrong, but this is like a district-wide issue.

Yeah, the letter from the Athletic Association seems to place the blame on the district for allowing this to happen.

Hmm.

Glenville was a powerhouse in Division IV last year.

They'd won several state championships.

They moved up to Division III this year, so the playoffs were going to begin tonight.

They were going to begin tonight and the decision came yesterday.

You know, I was reading a story about this and, you know, the school and the school district, I believe, aren't trying to appeal the decision, not that they'd have a lot of time to do it.

I believe Ted Ginn gave a comment that he did not know that this was going to happen and he didn't agree with the decision.

Although they said, the OHSAA said, oh, Glenville was fine with it and they took the punishment and they understood what was going on.

So there's still some more reporting to do on this, a little more to find out.

It isn't the first time that the state agency has come down on Glenville.

In 2 they got whacked in sort of the same way and actually some pretty harsh penalty.

Right .And so they got fined $5,000 for administrative errors when this happened.

The school district.

Right.

But, but Glenville was suspended for 3 years from the playoffs during that time, too.

So, and for essentially the same allegations that we're seeing now.

Right.

And I have to say that when you talk to people in the Collinwood-Glenville neighborhood, it's like well known that like all of the players who go to Ginn Academy go and play at Glenville.

Right, but there's this technicality that where you live apparently should rule where you go play high school football.

It'll be interesting to see that play out.

By the way, the private schools that they compete with draw students from everywhere, so a completely different set of rules in those cases, yet they play in the same leagues, they're in the same playoff brackets as well.

All right, MyChart remains down for University Hospitals patients following what the health system termed a cybersecurity incident last week.

Officials say most appointments and procedures are continuing as normal.

And Ida, you have firsthand knowledge of this.

You were there yesterday.

Yes, my private life took me on a trip to one of our university hospital's doctors, and the system is still down.

The staff seemed a little bit miffed.

The intranet is working, so the system within the hospital that doctors use to like access patient records, those are fine.

So patients can see their doctor.

Most of the appointments are being kept, and the hospital system is encouraging people to keep those appointments.

But the public-facing staff, so like the websites and the MyChart system, those are still down following what they called unusual activity on a server last Thursday.

So this wasn't like that episode of The Pit where they all had to start using magic markers and dry erase boards.

They have their computers internally.

Yeah, they're not faxing stuff yet.

Got it.

But do we know, and I think we haven't gotten incredible detail from University Hospitals, but Do we know if there's ransom requests or something like that?

You often hear about those kinds of bad actors and trying to negotiate whether you're going to pay or those kind of things.

Or is it just a well, they said it's a cyberattack, so clearly it's targeted at them.

Yeah, we don't know if there's anything like a ransom or anything like that.

We don't know if patient records have been accessed at this point.

All we've been told is that there was a cybersecurity incident.

They have hired external investigators to help them figure out what's going on.

And they say they're working around the clock, 24/7 to get the systems back up.

But a spokesperson did say yesterday that disruptions may continue for the foreseeable future.

Yeah.

And if patient records were exposed, you would think they'd come out and say that they would, they would let people know.

Yeah.

I mean, eventually they have to, right?

And actually, Quest Diagnostics, which is one of the it's like an outside lab that does laboratory work, outpatient laboratory work for university hospitals.

Like if you go get a blood draw or something like that, they had a cybersecurity incident the previous week and there they did disclose that patient records were compromised.

Okay.

If you'd like to weigh in on anything we're talking about, soi@Ideastream.org is the email where you can send your thoughts.

The MetroHealth system will continue providing medical care at the Cuyahoga County Jail after negotiating a new 3-year contract.

The $92 million agreement includes MetroHealth beefing up staffing at the jail to address repeated shortages.

And Ida, let's talk about some context.

First of all, Metro was brought in a few years ago for what reason?

Things at the jail were not good, to say the least.

This was back in 2018, part of 2019.

There was an investigation following 8 deaths from folks in custody and 69 attempted suicides.

The US Marshals found that conditions at the facility were inhumane.

That was their word, inhumane, and they stopped bringing prisoners there for 3 years.

Among the Marshals' findings were things like that the jail used food as a form of punishment, meals failed to meet nutritional standards, Inmates were said to have received inadequate medical care.

They were in cells without working toilets or running water.

So at the time, the marshals moved inmates from the downtown facility to a county-run facility in Euclid.

So they're talking about beefing up staffing now at the jail.

So they've been in there for the last few years.

There still have been some issues and this contract aimed to rectify them.

How will it do that?

Yeah.

So the first big thing it's going to do is increase the number of full-time clinical staff at the jail from 94 up to 122.

There's also going to be staff there 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.

Under the previous contract, there were only weekly weekday shifts with nurses at the jail and on-call physicians.

And what other changes are there in the new agreement?

So there were some concerns from the county about billing.

So MetroHealth is going to start billing a flat fee for staffing.

Under the previous contract, the hospital invoiced the county and often surpassed the contracted amount.

All right.

In other MetroHealth news, recently the hospital received more than $4 million in federal funding to continue offering a supplemental nutrition program specifically designed for women, infants, and children in Cuyahoga County.

Who qualifies for that?

Women, infants, and children.

Okay, thank you.

Moving along.

So the program provides food, nutrition education, and healthcare referrals to low-income pregnant and postpartum women, as well as infants and children up to age 5 who are at nutritional risk.

Okay, and one other news item because I just saw a note from Tim McGaw who works at MetroHealth and is a communications expert there.

He said if anyone is planning to attend today's reverse trick-or-treat in the pediatrics units, please let us know.

So they're offering reverse trick-or-treat in the pediatrics at MetroHealth.

Do they have Reese's?

It's great for the I'm sure they do, and they might even have Reese's Pieces.

Is it Reese's Pieces?

It's actually Reese's Pieces.

It's actually Reese's.

There was a big debate about this last this week online.

It's Reese's Pieces.

Comedian Brian Kenny has brought us through that entirely.

All right, a new plan created by the North Coast Waterfront Development Corporation lays out a broad vision for redeveloping Cleveland's lakefront, one that won't have a Browns stadium.

So what can we expect?

Sean, we've talked about the land bridge, one of the key features of the plan, on the show already.

Remind us briefly about the challenges currently facing the project.

And this land bridge is really important because Redoing the land bridge and redoing the Shoreway so that it's a boulevard instead of a highway is how you can easily walk over to what they're trying to build.

So the city is going along with its plans to build the land bridge.

The county and the convention center bureau wants to make sure that if they do that, they will leave room for the convention center to also expand north.

You know, they have to start construction by the end of next year, and there's $130 million in federal and state grants that are tied to this starting on time as well.

So when we look at this, they had one plan and it had been in place for just a couple of years, and then the Browns said, we're going to Brook Park.

So now they went, oh, now we have this whole big space to program.

The new plan re-envisions a whole lot of stuff, but it also includes what will happen with that space.

What will it be?

Right, and it's maybe easier to think about all these components at once, but where the stadium is, they're going to do kind of an open public park that's kind of shaped like a football field and keeps the character of like the yard lines that you're used to.

You know, right off of that, they're going to have this pedestrian corridor called the Diagonal that will be kind of like an East 4th.

It's like no cars, you can just walk storefront to storefront.

Another component of this plan is something called the Ribbon.

They're going to make sure that public space goes across like all of the waterfront.

So like northwest, east side of that.

Probably the prize of that is where you can be on the water.

And so they wanna make sure that those spaces are all public space.

Ida?

Yeah, can I ask just an opinion question?

Because I know that a lot of this is like flat public park space and the renderings look really nice, but that's a huge chunk of land.

And we know we don't have the concerns that we did at Burke about it being like an old landfill.

It can take a big building like a stadium.

So do you think they're setting aside some of that land for bigger construction later on down the road?

They definitely are.

So the way that this works, and they're calling it a framework rather than a master plan, But they've kind of outlined where they want the public space to be, and then they've left these large city blocks that could be like mix and match, whatever would come.

This is going to happen over 20 to 25 years.

Scott Skinner knows that like this will change, and he's the head of the Waterfront Development Corporation.

So this is almost creating like the city blocks of where it will be because he knows that like 25 years from now, you know, the demand for office space might be different.

One thing, it is former landfill and a lot of that space, because the Browns Stadium was there, they've done a lot of engineering on that specific space so that they know that like this is where if you want to put something heavy and tall, you can do that.

Yeah, you could put a Space Needle from Seattle or a CN Tower or something iconic that still could be envisioned in this plan.

And as you said, it's a framework.

I mean, they're talking about houses and neighborhoods and those types of things.

Maybe that'll manifest itself.

Maybe someone will want to build them and someone want to live there.

Maybe not.

We'll find out.

So they're basically saying, here's where stuff might go.

It's a plan, but it's really vague at the moment.

It's a plan.

And Scott Skinner did the same thing with Burke.

They put out like a vision for what Burke could be.

And he said, you need to put out a vision first and then you need to take in more feedback.

So they've already taken a lot of resident feedback through meetings and surveys, but they know that once they put this out, that gives you something to comment on to say, okay, now that I've seen this, this is what I like and don't like about it.

But yeah, he, he, it's more let's get the land prepped, let's get it ready for developers and take the guesswork out of, you know, what can they build and where can they build it.

Yeah, I've covered news in this town for more than 30 years.

I've seen a lot of lakefront plans.

It would be great to see lakefront action.

And that's what they're hoping to arrive at on this particular plan.

Cleveland City Council in a 7 to 6 vote Monday refused to cough up $1.1 million for repairs at Huntington Bank Field where the Browns play currently.

Under a lease signed in 1998, the city, which owns the stadium, must pay for capital repairs.

So this vote could open the city to a lawsuit.

The vote was unprecedented, not only because of the refusal to pay, but because it was so close.

Most council measures usually pass unanimously, or there might be one or two dissenters, Sean, but a 7-6 vote is pretty darn close.

And I, I have to say that I think some of the people who voted no might have thought that this was going to pass, and they could have voted no and looked good, even though it was going to pass.

But yeah, I mean, this was very surprising.

I have to admit, I did not watch the meeting, woke up that morning and was like, oh no, I missed news.

Something happened.

So, and you saw council members during the committee meeting essentially saying, we all know that we're contractually obligated to do this.

We are essentially voting no, knowing that we would lose a lawsuit.

So why?

Is it because they just want to stick a finger in the eye of the Haslams?

So yeah, it's gotten to the point where there was resurfacing on Brook Park Road that was also up for a vote that went 10-5.

Like, they don't even want to vote yes on road construction that they think will help the Browns Stadium or people get to the stadium.

The new one, right?

And so there are some council members who believe because the Browns moved, they have also broken the lease.

I don't know if that legal argument would hold up because there was the settlement.

But yeah, they, like, people like Council Member Michael Polensek say, We're really unhappy with this $100 million deal that we reached, and we feel like we need to revisit this, and we feel like this is our way to say our displeasure.

In the meanwhile, Blaine Griffin, the council president, said, listen, we're going to spend more than this $1.1 million trying to defend ourselves on this really indefensible, indefensible vote.

Blaine essentially said, hey, let's tally up all the costs we've spent.

And he had a quote that essentially said, you're all high-fiving now about your no vote.

I hope you're high-fiving when the legal bills come in.

All right, this week the Browns officially started selling PSLs, personal seat licenses, for the new stadium expected to open in 2029.

All season ticket holders have to make a one-time purchase, gives them the right to buy season tickets for specific seats in the stadium, and they're not going to be cheap.

It's going to be a different environment.

Yeah, I, you know, there's been a lot of talk up to into this point of what the PSLs would cost.

I haven't seen the numbers, um, in front of me, but I can't imagine they're cheap.

All right.

By the way, on the rides for Lutheran Metropolitan Ministries, I reached back out.

They said more information will be available on their Facebook page and on their website as well.

You can also check out their LinkedIn.

So if you look at those, you'll get Lutheran Metropolitan Ministries.

I've got there is some information that Jasmin Santana posted online for Uber.

And I think this is maybe a different program, but if you use the promo code VOTETOLIVE1, you can get a free ride.

That way.

Lyft is also offering free rides.

I believe this is a national program, or it's not free, but it's 50% off up to $10.

But you can use the promo code VOTE26 for Lyft.

Okay, so there's all kinds of different promo codes that you can use, and I saw the one from the email that I got, the it was VOTETOLIVE15.So, okay, a number of different ways that you can access a free ride to the polls.

People want to get you there however you want to vote.

But they want that participation in the process.

All right.

The Ohio Supreme Court has closed the door on a lawsuit claiming more than 300,000 Ohioans are owed $900 million in unemployment checks from the pandemic.

The court decided not to reconsider the case after twice ruling it moot.

Former Ohio Attorney General Marc Dann, who filed the lawsuit, said it's not moot.

People are entitled to the money, and he hopes the next governor can intervene.

So, Sarah, when we talk with Karen about this, she says it's the thing she gets most emails about.

She's right because I get emails and texts about it as well.

And Karen has covered this much more extensively than I have.

I've written about it once or twice, but I still get asked about it.

It has to do with a federal relief program that sent weekly checks to people unemployed during the pandemic.

Governor Mike DeWine ended the program 4 months early back in 2021.

And what Dann is arguing is that when the next governor comes in, whoever it may be, they could just go and rescind DeWine's decision to terminate that program.

He argues the money's still there.

I will say I've asked DeWine about it.

Karen's asked DeWine about it.

DeWine says the money is not there.

Hmm.

So is it owed to the people is what the question is.

It was supposed to be $300 a month.

It got ended 4 months early.

Does everyone who collected it are they all entitled to that $1,200?

That's the question.

And there's an estimated 300,000 people involved in this lawsuit, according to Dann.

He argues that they would likely use the money right away and that would inject almost $1 billion into the economy.

He's saying that people could use the money now.

It would actually help the economy.

So this is not just about righting a wrong, but that this would also do some good.

That's what his argument is.

The Supreme Court, though, has said, listen, we're not we're not listening to you.

This lawsuit is not a lawsuit.

So his hope is what?

What happens politically that he thinks would somehow revive this idea?

Well, like I said, I think he's probably asking, and I think he'd be looking more so at Democratic nominee Amy Acton versus Republican nominee Vivek Ramaswamy.

But he sees that he hasn't gotten any motion with Governor DeWine.

And I think his hope is that with a new governor, that that governor might rescind the decision that DeWine made.

All right.

Morton Salt has indefinitely closed its mine in Painesville after workers discovered underground water intrusion late last week.

77 workers were laid off.

Ida, let's talk about that.

What happened as a result of, of, or what what caused the closure and what's happened as a result?

Well, this is a salt mine under Lake Erie, so what we're talking about here is a water leak.

The Fairport Harbor plant was evacuated safely.

There were no injuries reported following the discovery, but that is a dangerous thing.

I think they don't want Lake Erie to live up to its name.

Surface activities at the mine site are still operating but limited in the meantime, and salt from the underground mines is mainly used as road salt.

So as we head into the winter season here, there is some concern about are they going to be able to fill their contract?

Are we going to have enough salt?

So if that's the case, yeah.

What are they what are they going to do?

I mean, you've got to have the stockpiles.

Yeah.

So we're not sure yet what's going to happen with that particular salt mine.

The Ohio Department of Transportation does have a statewide storage facility.

They said that capacity for road salt was at 73% and they're expecting more to be delivered.

This is not their only source of salt.

So hopefully that'll be enough.

I think if I remember some reporting correctly on the El Niño year that we're heading into, it could be a pretty snowy year.

So I saw the Plain Dealer is doing some extensive reporting on this, but there's a lot of concern about what's happening with that mine.

Is it a breach of Lake Erie water?

Could it affect the lake itself?

Is there some sort of disaster that could happen as a result of this?

Could it collapse?

And in Cleveland, we have a pretty extensive mine as well, the Cargill Salt Mine, which I've been down in before, and it's amazing.

But they do the salt and pillar I'm sorry, room and pillar mining, which is they basically create a room where the salt used to be and leave a similar-sized room where the salt used to be, which is the pillar, and that's what holds everything up.

The question is whether that could be degraded.

Yes, these are all excellent questions, and I don't have the answers to them.

I'm not sure anybody does.

Have the answers.

Yeah, I mean, investigators are looking into this now.

They're trying to figure out exactly what happened, what it's going to mean.

We don't know yet.

I think we just have to keep an eye on this.

All right, let's move on to Flock.

The city of Akron has removed its Flock camera network from nationwide searches, blocking outside law enforcement agencies from conducting broader searches.

Policy takes effect immediately.

Akron's contract with Flock runs through 2028.

It's the first in a few round-robin Flock things we're going to talk about, Sean.

But let's talk about that.

Concerns have been raised by residents.

Now they're saying, okay, it's just for us.

Yeah, so residents were raising similar concerns we've seen in other cities about privacy, immigration enforcement, enforcement around reproductive rights investigations.

Councilmember Fran Wilson of Ward 1 suggested suspending the Flock program.

Some councilmembers also questioned where the Flock cameras were.

These were in, according to the councilmembers, in a lot of poor white, Black, and brown communities.

The Akron Chief of Public Safety said, you know, we're using data to look at where violent crime happens, and that's where we place the cameras.

But some councilmembers were concerned.

And Shontel Brown, the U.S.

representative from Warrensville Heights, she sent a letter to the FBI with concerns that flock cameras can essentially serve as real-time surveillance of citizens.

That's a broader issue, but a national issue regarding flock.

Yeah, and I believe she sent this letter to the FBI, and she was concerned if national law enforcement like the FBI uses this, this could really become, you know, the what everybody worries about is surveillance of like everybody.

All right, one more flock story, and that is that the Cleveland Metropolitan School District will not renew its contract with Flock Safety.

It operates license plate reading cameras on school properties.

The contract lapsed the end of June.

They stayed on through a short-term extension while they decided, but they took the step of saying we just don't want them anymore.

So what will they do to replace that in returns in regards to security?

So they, they mentioned that they already have 5,000 cameras, that more traditional security cameras they can use, and, and other things that they can try and use to these parking lots safe.

All right.

Speaking of the Cleveland schools, they have a couple of open school board seats coming up.

They do.

And so these are generally, these are all picked by the mayor.

It's very unique.

I think Cleveland's the only place in Ohio where the mayor appoints the school board members.

So you can apply though?

You can Yeah, you can apply.

I don't have this up, but you, I will have to get the information for them.

I don't have it right in front of me.

Okay.

Let's see.

Yeah, it's open to all residents of the school district.

Elected officials and district employees cannot serve on the board, but that's it.

You can anyone else is eligible.

All right.

Moving right along.

Akron residents will have to pay more for water over the next 3 years as the city works to replace aging infrastructure and address a growing number of water main breaks.

Ida, how much will water rates increase and when can residents expect to see those increases?

So the current flat water rate fee for most households is $9 a month.

That's going to go up to $12 a month in February.

The increase will begin at the start of next year and continue through 2029.

There's also an incremental 20% increase each year for every unit of water a household uses.

So the estimate is that the total of the increases will amount to about $5 on each bill, $5 extra on each bill for an average household.

And what were the problems that led to these hikes?

Apparently there were a lot of problems.

According to Akron Director of Public Service Chris Ludle, parts of the system are more than 100 years old.

He told Ideastream's Ella Abbott that there were 439 water main breaks already across the city this year and numerous boil advisories.

He expects that by the end of the year they will have passed 500 water main breaks.

Hmm.

That's a lot.

What would happen if the city delayed the increase?

It would be more expensive.

The city estimates that if it waits until 2028, the average $5 increase that we're going to see now would actually be more like $8.50.

Some people are concerned, obviously, about prices for bills going up.

Akron Mayor Shammas Malik has urged people who are feeling that burden to ask for assistance through the city's water bill assistance program.

All right, we're gonna move our clocks back an hour on Sunday morning as we fall back away from daylight saving time.

Actually, in most cases, we don't have to do anything.

Our phone does it, our car usually updates.

These days.

These days, yeah.

Used to run around the house and do that.

I think our stove still needs to be set back.

But anyway, in July, the House of Representatives passed the Sunshine Protection Act, which is a bill intended to end the biennial practice, biannual practice, nationwide.

President Trump heartily endorsed that as well.

We'll get darker evenings, earlier morning sunshine, and the immediate benefit this weekend, an extra hour to eat Halloween candy before bed.

But what's the status of this bill for the people that don't like the idea of having to adjust their clocks at all?

Yeah, so that bill is currently awaiting a Senate vote.

It's stalled in the Senate.

There's nothing, nothing scheduled at the moment.

19 states, not including Ohio, have already said that they would like to adopt permanent daylight saving time.

They are currently there's a federal law that bars them from doing that, although states are allowed in the current situation to switch to permanent standard time.

Hawaii does, most of Arizona does.

So standard time is what we'll be on after Saturday, after Sunday morning.

Yeah, so standard time is basically like solar time, so that's when more or less the sun is overhead at noon.

Right now, today, the sun is gonna be overhead around 1:00 PM.

Next week it'll be closer to noon.

All right, so you talked to sleep experts at the Cleveland Clinic about the time change, which is hard.

What did they have to say?

Yeah, I spoke to Dr.

Alicia Roth.

She's a psychologist and a specialist in behavioral sleep medicine.

She said there are some health concerns we see around daylight saving time loss of sleep or issues around sleep, but also heart attack and stroke, more car accidents right after the clock change.

We see those mostly in the spring though, when we lose an hour of sleep.

We don't really see those that much in the fall.

This is going to be a hard time change for people who wake up early because it's hard to tell your body to go to sleep earlier.

And you also just talked about the danger of staying in daylight saving time because there actually have been more accidents as a result of that.

Yeah, so the US already did this once.

There was an experiment in the '70s during the Arab oil crisis where we went to permanent daylight saving time, and it ended up in a bunch of accidents.

The sun didn't rise until 9 in many places.

Northeast Ohio would be one of those places, and it led to a lot of accidents, especially for kids waiting for the bus.

There was a cluster in Florida where like 8 kids died in the first week after the switch to permanent daylight saving time.

There were also kids in Ohio who were in really bad accidents.

So popularity really turned on that program very quickly.

I just know that the dog is confused about when dinner time is, right?

Like, I'm getting dinner an hour later or an hour earlier?

What's going on here?

You can't just wind your dog forward an hour.

Apparently you cannot do that.

Well, listen, my thanks to you.

Great debut on the roundtable.

Good to have you back.

Oh, thanks.

It's great to be here.

And good to have you as well, Sean.

Good talking to you.

Thanks for having me back.

And Sarah Donaldson, appreciate you being with us.

Always good to be here.

All right, terrific.

And I want to thank you as well for listening and watching.

There is a rebroadcast tonight at 9 on 89.7 WKSU if you missed any part of this show, if you came in a little bit late.

Our television show airs at 5 PM tonight and Sunday at 10:30 AM on WVIZ PBS.

You got something to say about today's show?

You can send an email to soi@Ideastream.org.

You can find us on Instagram @TheSoundOfIdeas, and you can also find us on the podcast app of your choice.

I'm Mike McIntyre.

Stay safe.

And I'd like to acknowledge the passing of musician Donnie Iris this week.

He was big in Cleveland, though he's from over Pittsburgh way.

fans of both teams could agree on their affection for Donnie Iris and the Cruisers And here's their hit, Ah!

Leah!