Today in Ohio, the daily news podcast of cleveland.com and The Plain Dealer.
CLEVELAND, Ohio — The two Democrats on the Ohio Redistricting Commission have asked the Ohio Supreme Court to push back the May 3 election date to give the redistricting process additional time to play out.
We’re talking about the timeline, and the Republicans’ push in federal court to force rejected maps to be used for the May election, on Today in Ohio.
Listen online here. See the automated transcript at the bottom of the post.
Editor Chris Quinn hosts our daily half-hour news podcast, with editor Leila Atassi, editorial board member Lisa Garvin and content director Laura Johnston.
You’ve been sending Chris lots of thoughts and suggestions on our from-the-newsroom text account, in which he shares what we’re thinking about at cleveland.com. You can sign up for free by sending a text to 216-868-4802.
Here are the questions we’re answering today:
Why did the Ohio Supreme Court dismiss all legal challenges to the Congressional redistricting in Ohio last week, and how did the people who brought the cases respond Monday?
Does the Ohio Supreme Court have the power to unilaterally delay the May 3 election because we don’t know where the legislative and congressional district lines are yet?
How late would the sun come up on the latest day of the year if we kept daylight savings time year-round?
What are the barriers that keep Black and rural Americans off organ transplant waiting lists, and what is to be done about it?
What has happened to all of the downtown coffee shops? Is Cleveland going caffeine-free?
What is Mentoring Monday, and when is it this year?
Did the Cleveland International Film Fest back down from its plan to banish the Playhouse Square projectionists from the festival, which is at Playhouse Square?
What are the latest Northeast Ohio business to put peace above profits and halt business in Russia?
What groundbreaking technologies did a Cleveland bioengineering professor discuss with President Joe Biden last week in a bit to set up a new agency to pay for such technologies?
What are the Ohio cities with the highest percentages of people with a college degree?
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Read the automated transcript below:
Chris: [00:00:00] We note the passing today of a long time Cuyahoga county, sheriff Gerald. McFall one of the MIS grants of the huge county corruption back in the 2008, 2009 era. And an example of why the kind of journalism we do@cleveland.com and the plane dealer is so important. It was work by reporter, mark Pointe.
Unveiled all of the corrupt ways Mr. MCAL was taking advantage of taxpayers. He ultimately got convicted of crimes and had to resign and disgrace it’s today in Ohio, the news podcast discussion from cleveland.com and the plane dealer. I’m Chris Quinn here with my colleagues, Laura Johnston, Lela Tossi and Lisa Garvin, and is rare to talk about whether or not we should keep.
Daylight savings time. We’ll get to that in a minute. We have a story about what it would mean in Cleveland. Let’s begin. Why did the Ohio Supreme court dismiss all legal challenges to the congressional redistricting in Ohio last week? And [00:01:00] how did the people who brought the cases respond on Monday? Leila?
This is complicated and technical, but it’s important. Yeah,
Leila: we were trying to iron out the technicalities right before we. Pushed record here, but so two, two cases brought by a group of Ohioans represented by the national redistricting, uh, action funded by the league of women voters asked the court to stop the state from using the congressional maps that were most recently passed by the redistricting commission.
But the court on Friday unanimously denied request. Chris you’ll have to help me with this one, but apparently a technicality with the way the congressional amendment was written required. The meant that the court didn’t retain jurisdiction in the case and they had to dismiss it. Chris, can you kick in any further detail on that?
Chris: Well, yeah. What, what, what I think happened is they, they realized this after considering these challenge just for weeks and weeks. Yeah. It’s a long time. Yeah, there was a moment last week where it was like, oh, we don’t have jurisdiction. We have to dismiss this. [00:02:00] They’ll have to refile. It was, you know, it was one of those Friday night dump the trash things that came out and it’s like, what, wait, what, how does that work?
And meeting
Leila: their defense. There were a lot of moving parts going, you know, in the last couple months here, they had a lot, keep throw a lot.
Chris: To their credit. They are trying to do the right thing and they realized they didn’t have jurisdiction. So they tossed it. So what happened, what happened?
Leila: But so the court noted and it’s ruling Friday that, that, that their, their ruling doesn’t mean the parties can’t file a lawsuit to challenge the plan that was approved on March 2nd.
So on Monday. Uh, a national democratic redistricting group did exactly that the national democratic redistricting committee led by Eric Holder. The former Obama era, us attorney general filed the new lawsuit with the Supreme court. Once again, contending that the congressional map that Republicans passed on March 2nd was illegally gerrymandered in favor of Republican under Ohio’s newer districting rules.
And the, the arguments were really similar or. [00:03:00] Identical to the complaint that they filed on March 4th, the lawyers for the group also asked the court to set an expedited schedule for considering the written arguments for and against the congressional map. The final written briefs would be due on March 30th, which is a few days before ballots have to be sent to military voters under a revised deadline that eight officials negotiated with the federal government last week.
Chris: Well, they’re gonna have to postpone the election. There’s no way they’re gonna be ready for that. I bet this stuff just gets pushed. We’ll have a primary in July or something. Uh, because clearly the, the congressional maps continue to be seriously gerrymandered. These don’t fit the Supreme. Court’s not gonna stand for it.
They’re gonna kick them back and then we’ll be moving on it’s today on all Ohio. Does the Ohio Supreme court have the power to unilaterally delay the May 3rd primary election, because we don’t know where the legislative and congressional district lines are yet. Lisa, we just talked about all the complications about not having the lines, [00:04:00] but now we have somebody that wants the Supreme court to step in and deal with the election.
Lisa: It’s not clear whether the court has the authority, but the Democrats on the redistricting committee committee seem to think that the court does have that power. Um, Allison Russo and, uh, Senator Vernon, Sykes asked in a letter to the Ohio Supreme court to move the election to June 28th. And of course that.
Affects all kinds of other things going on in the background that will definitely have an impact on that. G O P activist suits. That’s calling for a federal judge to adopt, adopt the rejected maps because time is running out for the May 3rd primary. Um, yeah, I, you know, the argue the DS in their letter argued that the Supreme court does have the, a to change the date, but the G O P authority majority in the legislature, cuz it’s the legislature that can change the election date.
But we know the G O P majority has refused to do so. So what is the next, you know, [00:05:00] uh, remedy there?
Chris: I don’t know. I think the court has been pretty clear that, that it expects the legislature to deal with the election date and that they don’t wanna overstep. I don’t know that there’s anything in the constitutional amendments that give them that ability.
It’s interesting too, that the Democrats filed this because every time the court issues an order, it’s been saying. No more filings. Don’t file anything unless we ask you to, and this seems to go around that don’t file anything, unless we ask you to order, uh, we’ll have to see what they do with that.
There’s so much before the Ohio Supreme court right now, uh, it must be, I would love to be a fly on the wall as they go back and forth. Cuz in the background, of course you have two of the justice is fighting to be the next chief justice in all of this. Posturing is partly to win voter approval. And
Lisa: also apparently some G O P house members are floating.
The idea of impeaching chief justice, Maureen O’Connor, who has sit with the, the liberal justices on
Chris: this case. [00:06:00] Yeah, I don’t, I think that that’s. Not, I, none of them, they’re also cowardly. They won’t put their name behind it. So they’re whispering that they’ve been whispering it for months, hoping somebody would bite the Cincinnati and choir finally bit, even though you can’t find real names in their story.
So I, I just I’d be shocked if somebody stood up and said, yes, I’m gonna lead this charge. And, and a bunch of people would sign on cuz I think it would lead to just a bigger, constitutional crisis. She hasn’t done anything wrong. She’s she’s making rulings based on sound legal judgment that you can debate, but you you’re gonna impeach her for doing her job.
I just don’t see it. You’re listening to today in Ohio. How late would the sun come up on the latest day of the year? If we kept daylight savings, time, year round, Laura, we just started wondering what it would mean. And we asked a reporter to find out what’s the answer for Northeast Ohio.
Laura: It would be almost 9:00 AM [00:07:00] before sunrise.
If this happened, the latest would be during the first week of January, right around the end of the year. Obviously when we know it’s the darkest and it would be 8:54 AM during that period, the good news is that we wouldn’t be dark as quickly that instead of night starting around five, 5:00 PM, it wouldn’t start till 6:00 PM.
So yeah, I know. That’d
Chris: be great.
Lisa: Lisa. I am a standard time girl. I’m telling you if we’re gonna pick one. It should be standard time because time, time is standard. I mean, it’s not a construct. I mean, come on. And yeah, I mean, and I did, you know, find a great article on CNN a few days ago, and they talked about how daylight savings time was made permanent.
A couple of times in our history, but it was rescinded the first time it was made permanent was during world war II and then it got rescinded in 1945. And then during the winter of 19 73, 74, daylight savings time [00:08:00] was also made permanent because of the energy crisis back then. So they’ve tried it before and it hasn’t stuck.
Chris: You know, our time con keeping system is all relative. Our calendar is so screwed up that we have to have a leap day every year to make up for all the hours. We’re not accounting for why not split the difference. Why not change the clock to the thirties? So, oh my gosh, you
Laura: said that wouldn’t be confusing at all.
Chris: It, it would split the difference. Look, I can live with nine o’clock because let’s face. The the, you start to see light a good half hour before and having the sun stay up an extra hour at the end of the day. That’s my favorite day of the year.
Laura: But yeah, I gotta say it. It’s not like you have a lot of free time before you start work in the morning.
Right. So it’s so nice to be able to have what feels like a longer evening. I, I was driving home on Sunday. From the ski hill last day of the ski season. And it was five o’clock and the sun was super bright. And I was like, I feel like I have hours before the end of the day. And it was just so bright.
Leila: Yeah.
And when, when, when you’re, when you’re getting up before the sun, you [00:09:00] feel like a real go-getter. So if you’re , if you’re up at eight 30 and it’s still like the pre sunrise, you’re like, you’re the early bird
Lisa: oh my, oh my God. Yeah. But then Laura and Layla, your kids will be standing, waiting for the bus in the dark at seven 30.
Yeah. That doesn’t bother me.
Laura: No problem. No problem with that at all. I say, I actually lived in Indiana. For a year. Um, and they didn’t change and it would get really confusing because you’re like, are we on Ohio time? Are we on Illinois time? Mm-hmm so I, I don’t, I would not suggest just choosing not to change which Arizona and Hawaii still do.
And you do wonder if we do this? What does Canada do? You know? I mean, we share all of the same time zones with them. I think it does post some interesting issues. This wouldn’t come in effect until at least 2023. So we’d have some time to figure it out, but. Spoken
Chris: like a true Canadian native I haven’t heard anybody say, what is Canada [00:10:00] gonna do?
Laura: It’s legit. I mean, Mexico too. I, we, it, it goes all the way up and down. It’s not like it’s just in this country.
Lisa: Well, and plus I believe, I believe Rubio’s bill is saying that states can choose to opt out. So if you have different states choosing different times, that’s a real mess,
Chris: but they’ve done that.
Arizona has not. Uh, agreed to the time or didn’t when I was out there, there are states that have pulled up right.
Laura: Arizona, Hawaii right now do not, uh, change. Indiana has.
Chris: Come along and the world doesn’t end because some states are out of sync and, and
Laura: parts of states think about like Florida has two different time zones in it.
Are you in the, you know, the central or the Eastern and part of Indiana goes with Illinois and part goes with Ohio. So they figure it out. But yeah, it’s, it’s confusing.
Chris: Like I love Layla’s take on this. There it’ll turn everybody into a go getter because they’re getting up when it’s dark outside. That’s the best perspective yet you’re listening to today in Ohio.[00:11:00]
What are the barriers that keep black and rural Americans off organ transplant waiting lists and what is to be done about it? Layla, Julie Washington put this story together based on some recent studies and talks. What did she find?
Leila: Well? So she, she, uh, uh, felt this new report from the national academies of sciences.
Nearing in medicine showed that African Americans earth. Three times more likely to suffer from kidney failure than white Americans. And yet they’re substantially less likely to be placed on transplant wait lists, or ultimately to get an organ transplant. The transplant report recommended eliminating race from clinical equations used in all in, in allocating organs.
Race based thresholds for estimating kidney function can underestimate the severity of the disease in African American patients. That’s really astounding. This, this makes them less likely to get the needed specialty care or be placed on transplant transplant weightless in a timely manner. Apparently patients living [00:12:00] in rural areas or who are unable the easily access specialists also have a really difficult time connecting with the organ transplant system.
So. Those who miss appointments, who skip medications or cancel appointments due to a lack of healthcare or transportation are often labeled non-compliant and, and turn out, you know, they’re, they’re labeled a poor candidate for the transplant transplant list as well. So creating a more equitable system would require increasing the number of organs, transplanted, annually, reducing or of donated organs that aren’t used.
And of course, You know, finding ways to, um, to get more, to, to put more, uh, African Americans on that transplant list. Um, you know, I, one of the things that really surprised me about this was how many organs go unused. Julie reported that about one in five kidneys from deceased donors are, are not used. Um, that is just.
Lisa: Just my not used or not useable. I think some of them were not
Leila: usable. Well, they said not used. And they [00:13:00] said rejected organs often come from a less than optimal donor. An optimal donor is someone who’s younger and free of underlying health issues. And according to her reporting it, it might be better for an older patient with comorbidities to take ache a less than optimal organ early, rather than wait forever until.
They can’t TA tolerate a transplant at all. and so, well, that was a very interesting, I had never contemplated that
Chris: before. When she had the number in there of people who die every day while waiting for organ transplant was 14 something. Yeah, it was like very 14 or 17. It’s a lot of people dying and, and that, that makes that unused organ issue all the more acute.
So, um, it is good stuff to, to read, but I, you know, I can kind of understand why it would be harder for people in rural places to get the help, because they’re just not near the centers of medicine, but I, the, the whole idea [00:14:00] that people living in the Cleveland area can’t get on the transplant list or, or fall off that is ridiculous.
Right. Because the clinic did what a thousand transplants last year or something like that. Mm-hmm and okay. You’re listening to today in Ohio. What has happened to all of the downtown Cleveland coffee shops? Is Cleveland going caffeine free? Lisa? I think this is more a tale of the downtown workforce shrinking.
Despite what downtown workforce advocates would have you believe.
Lisa: I think it’s a little of that. And I also think it’s a little bit of right sizing too. I mean, Starbucks closed three locations, but they still have a couple downtown. They close the ones in key tower, tower, city, and at 200 public square and then a local chain, Joe Max’s coffee company and the Southwest corner, public square.
They closed. During the pandemic in July, 2020 and owner Jean Kaso says, you know, she just hasn’t been able to reopen because of staffing issues. And she did mention fewer downtown workers. She actually said, [00:15:00] and I quote, it still feels changed down here in downtown. And she said, you know, uh, there are fewer guests at the Renaissance hotel.
Which they got a lot of their business from the hotel while they were open. They still have locations at Cleveland state, further down the road, still downtown and one in Beville and they’re doing okay. But yeah, as you said, Chris, the downtown Cleveland Alliance is like, ah, there’s still a hundred restaurants and coffee shops you can go to, and they say that foot traffic, they measured foot ethic for January.
They said that, uh, it was 3.5 million, but it was 5.2 million in 2020, just before the pandemic shut down.
Chris: Yeah. I always trip over that. How, I mean, are they really counting 3.2 million people or is there some formula that they use? Look that that Starbucks that was in key tower was there for a long time.
And I I’d go there when I was a reporter and as an editor, as a great place to meet people that wanted to chat and you always waited in the line. I mean, it was always busy. The [00:16:00] fact that they decided to end, that tells me that. They just don’t, they, they lost the traffic during the pandemic and didn’t see a reason to continue.
If the demand was there, they’d still be open. And the fact that they’re closing up shop left and right tells me that there are far fewer downtown workers than
Lisa: yeah. But, you know, Starbucks, I mean, and, and it’s. Famous in Houston, they’re actually two Starbucks right across the street from each other, you know?
Um, so I, they do tend to kind of flood the market, but like you say, they were getting the
Chris: business. So well, the other thing that Starbucks has done Starbucks loves the, the, to go drive up kind of. Uh, traffic mm-hmm they get a lot more business in a suburban shop where people drive in and drive out than they do with a pedestrian shop.
And so this just might be part of Starbucks focusing on, on suburban areas. Of course, this all comes at the same time that the workers for Starbucks are seeking to organize in a broad way across Northeast Ohio. And you wonder if that plays into it [00:17:00] as well? Mm-hmm , you’re listening to today in Ohio. Laura.
Why is it so hard for people to find lawnmowers? The lawns have started to grow? This is a crisis
Laura: maybe it’s not a crisis yet, but yes, if you don’t have a working lawnmower, then you might wanna go buy it now and not wait until your lawn looks like a jungle because they are going to be hard to find. And the reason is just the same as everything else.
The supply chain issues Mo um, Mowers are more complicated than they used to be. They require more parts. And so if they don’t have one part, then you can’t make the full mower. And so they’re expecting prices to be about 10% higher this year. And if you need one, you better get on it. Just like boats and paddle boards and cars and everything else.
Although I
Chris: did see good news in this for you, Laura, because as you’ve mentioned in the past, you’re not big on changing the oil in your mower and you have to replace it fairly regularly. You can get an electric mower. Now the batteries are lasting a lot
Laura: longer. We have had a battery powered mower for two years now, [00:18:00] and my yard is so big that I mow it in.
Segments. I like mow it in three segments and I do it on different days sometimes. So I, I don’t worry about the battery life. It takes me about 20, 25 minutes to do each segment. So it works out really well for me. And then, um, my son, he’s 11 last summer, he mowed our next door neighbors lawn the entire summer once a week.
And I didn’t worry about it because, you know, I mean, There’s no, the gasoline makes it, I think, more dangerous. So he, he mowed with a battery powered mower. I was a big
Chris: fan. I, I still am surprised that those, the battery powered mowers work this time of the year when the grasses, the thickest, because that bogs down, even when
Laura: most just gotta mow it higher, like don’t put it on the lowest setting or you will be lifting that thing and emptying, you know, every, every row I’ve learned that the hard way.
All right. Well, and it’s. It’s everything though, you know, your, your leaf blowers and your trimmers and everything. And I think you mentioned that lawn care [00:19:00] services are probably going up this year too, which makes a lot of sense, cuz they gotta pay people more. If they have to replace their equipment, it’s gonna be more expensive.
Gasoline is more expensive. So plan to pay a little bit more for your yard work this year.
Chris: Yeah. If you want to mower get out and get it. Now they will be in short supply it’s today in Ohio. Did the Cleveland international film festival back down from its plan to banish the Playhouse square projectionist from the festival, which for the first time is at Playhouse square.
This year, Layla, we talked about this last week, we were kind of surprised that they would allow something like this to Mar their great reputation seems like they were worried about that as well. Yeah, it’s it
Leila: appears that they have reached an agreement. So to remind listeners about the conflict. That was brewing here.
The union representatives, uh, claimed that that Playhouse square was, was manipulating a loophole in a collective bargaining agreement that brings in I a T se local one 60 workers. Whenever the [00:20:00] Playhouse square theaters need projectionists, according to the union Playhouse square claimed it. Isn’t. It wasn’t putting on the Fest, the film festival, it was just letting the film festival use the space and that did not fly with them.
but union leaders told cleveland.com over the weekend that they’ve reached an agreement and it dictates that workers from the non-union rental video equipment company hired by the film festival will be the main high operators of the equipment. But there will be three union workers on hand to provide technical help throughout the full stretch of the festival.
Which runs March 30th through April 9th. Those union workers will be paid at their Playhouse square contract rate. So all parties seem to be satisfied and, uh, the show goes on. .
Chris: Well, everybody in the Northeast, Ohio, legislative delegation sent a letter to the film festival saying, Hey, you should be talking to them.
She brown apparently was active in this part of [00:21:00] the union’s complaint is, is that the festival wouldn’t even talk. To them. And they, I think they started to feel the pressure of a whole lot of people. Plus they might have lost ticket sales as a result because of support. So smart move brings peace. I’m sure the union isn’t completely happy because they would rather staff the whole thing, but at least they had the conversation and we will move toward the festival it’s today in Ohio.
What are the latest Northeast Ohio businesses to put peace above profits and halt doing business in Russia. Lisa, we read a story about a few more jumping on the bandwagon.
Lisa: Yeah. Some big Northeast Ohio players are saying yet to Russia doing business with Russia, um, among them are eaten, which. Is not in Cleveland anymore, not headquartered in Cleveland, but they still have a, a huge presence here.
They suspended all shipments and new order orders to Russian partners and customers. They do have a hundred workers in Russia and the Ukraine, they say they are all safe and accounted [00:22:00] for right now Cignet jewelers, which is based in fair lawn. That’s. The parent company of K jewelers, Jared Zales and others.
They suspended business with Russian owned companies and they won’t be buying any Russian mind. Diamonds vitamins from Olmsted township. They halted all shipments to Russia until further, further notice the law firm of Squire, pat BOS, as closing their Moscow out. Office until further notice and then Lincoln electric, which is headquartered here in Cleveland, they are ceasing operations over there.
They say that Russia though is one less than 1% of their global sales.
Chris: Yeah. It’s just the pressure continues on Russia. You gotta imagine that life inside that country is getting more and more difficult with the shortage of stuff. When you add that to the already pandemic inspired supply chain issues, it’s gotta be pretty bad.
You’re listening to today in Ohio. What groundbreaking technologies did a Cleveland bioengineering professor discuss with president Joe Biden last week in a bid to set up a new [00:23:00] agency to pay for such groundbreaking technologies in the future. Laura,
Laura: this is really cool. This is a prosthetics and case of Western reserve university.
Professor Dustin Tyler. This technology that lets people with prosthetic hands experience the sense of touch. So he met with Biden national institutes of health director, Francis Collins, to show this research and provide advice on setting up a new agency that would fund cutting edge medical research research.
The idea that private companies don’t have this kind of money to come up up with new technologies that really could change healthcare in a lot of different fields.
Chris: And what, how much money are we talking about? Do you think?
Laura: Well, we’re looking about it. It was $10 million for Tyler’s work to do this. And what Congress approved last week included a billion dollars to set up what is called advanced research projects, agency for health, which they’re calling ARPA eight.
And it’s based in the defense department’s [00:24:00] advanced research project agency, which they call DARPA and that’s who spearheaded Tyler’s original work.
Chris: Okay. You’re listening to today in Ohio. All right, let’s talk about mentoring Monday. It’s a big thing for us@covin.com and the plain dealer in advance Ohio.
It’s a big thing for our president, Brad Harmon, Laura, what is it about? This
Laura: is a great event for professional women in Cleveland to meet each other, to network, to talk about their careers and their struggle and support each other. It’s an annual event hosted by advance Ohio, which obvious. That includes cleveland.com and the plane dealer this year, it’s happening in person, which is exciting.
It’s gonna be April 25th in the morning at our offices at 1801 superior and miners are gonna lead round table discussions with topics like starting and managing your own business, uh, leadership. And the balancing act that women have to perform in the workplace is called having it all without dropping the ball and, uh, full disclosure.
I am one of the mentors at the event.
Chris: And [00:25:00] we’ve had quite a few people sign up. Right.
Laura: Yeah, definitely. And we’ve had really impressive people volunteer to be mentors. We have Maryanne Crosley, the president and CEO of the Cleveland leadership center, Sherry midday, a judge at the Kaga county court of common, please.
And the listener
Chris: to today in Ohio.
Laura: Exactly. Um, Denise Contura executive director of the Northeast Ohio Hispanic center for economic development. And we are talking to event Nicole Brown. Um, who’s from east Cleveland originally, Annie Ola interviewed her. So she’s the really cool keynote. Last year we had de Haslam.
I got to interview her and it I’m had some really, really impressive people. Last year. I was like, Are you sure that I should be mentoring you because I was very impressed with them. And it was a lot of women just wanted a space where they could talk to other professionals, especially during COVID it’s been so long since we’ve had these kind of events that, you know, to lift up support just to have these discussions is it’s fantastic.
How does, [00:26:00] how did the
Leila: mentorship relationships will work? Is it, is it like panel discussions or more intimate discussions, uh, within that space?
Laura: This year, it will be round tables with specific topics. So if you wanna listen, you wanna talk to that person. You could go to their table, or if you wanna talk about that topic, you could go there.
And then it, last year we did more one on one sessions and it was like 10 minutes. Each these would be longer and more
Leila: discussions. What, what Laura, what will you be focused on?
Laura: I’m talking about multitask. There you go. And, and, um, you know, motherhood in, in the workplace, I was like, yes, yes, I can do that topic.
That sounds good.
Chris: That’s what is it too late to sign up? Can people still register?
Laura: You can definitely still register. It’s at events.cleveland.com/mentoring Monday. It’s tickets are $49. They include a light breakfast, but if you register by April 5th, you get $15 off using the discount code a. Early bird.
So that’s for all those people who woke up before Dawn, right? Leila. [00:27:00]
Leila: Can I come in my pajamas? I’m just kidding you.
Laura: As long as they’re professional looking pajamas, you know, the kind with the collar.
Lisa: Yeah. That doesn’t say anything on the butt.
Chris: okay. You are listen to today in Ohio. I wanna close it back with what we started with, which is sheriff, Gerald McFall and his passing. Uh, I, I wanna bring it up because there is an effort once again, to make the sheriff elected in Cuyahoga county. And McFall is the poster child for why we don’t have an elected sheriff.
He was sheriff. For 32 years used his position to raise money illegally, uh, and created a fiefdom there. And, you know, I just, it’s one of those that you don’t wanna talk ill of the dead, but he is the symbol for what was wrong with our government. And it’s something that we should never forget. Right.
Laura: I agree.
He had no law enforcement experience. He wore a suit every day. He’d never [00:28:00] carried a gun. Not that’s saying you’re have to carry a gun, but he didn’t rise to the ranks. He didn’t necessarily know what it took to be in law enforcement. He just was, he was in city council first and he had name recognition.
He got elected and he kept getting elected.
Chris: Well, and he was like a good old boy who befriended journalists. So they really didn’t look closely at him. And it took mark Puente who did a series of probably, I don’t know, 19 stories, all, all that he developed from his sources. It was a tour of force of reporting that ended the three decade career of, of a guy who had the largely.
Avoided scrutiny. Uh, and that was part of the reason for county reform. There are those that say we haven’t had good sheriffs in the new era, but that’s really a product of the county executive failing to identify quality sheriffs. And if we have a problem with that, we should really be looking at the executive.
No,
Lisa: But I think though, because I’ve come out before on this, on editorial board, round [00:29:00] tables, I think you should have an elected sheriff. Cuz I think we saw with Armen Buddhi that the sheriff had no power under him. Buddhi could, you know, end run around him. And he, the sheriff was basically a puppet for the county executive.
So in this case, the sheriff was only as good as the county executive was.
Chris: Right. So we should elect a good county executive instead of creating another fiefdom.
Lisa: I don’t know. I, I, I was stunned to see that sheriff and I understand I was not here for the MCAL era, so I understand why it was done, but coming from a state that elected sheriffs, like most states do in most counties, I was like, what?
So yeah.
Chris: I where I thought,
Leila: I don’t know what the answer to this, this problem is because I feel like, I mean, this might be cynical. I think, I think voters might be, are more likely to know how to pick a good county executive than to know how to pick a good sheriff. I mean, if I, if I’m at the polls, Yeah, I, I, I wouldn’t, I wouldn’t know what makes a good sheriff or I, I would go with name [00:30:00] recognition, but, but I would probably know more about the candidates for county executive that would, that would register with me better.
I don’t think that a, uh, candidate for sheriff, um, you know, I, I think, I don’t know. I, I think, uh, I, I think we should, we should hang with our current form of government a little while longer before pulling out the rug.
Chris: Right. Let’s get the county executive that we had in mind when we changed government, because we have yet to see that.
And the two candidates that look like we’ll be running against each other in November, either of them could be that executive
Laura: Laura. I was just gonna say, it’s not like you elect police chiefs, you know? Right. That
would
Leila: be, yeah. It’s the same thing. Yeah. You gotta get, you have a good, you have to have a strong county executive and, and someone you can count on to, to choose the right.
At the right law enforcement, um, chief, right, right.
Lisa: The police chiefs don’t well, and, but police chiefs, don’t oversee county jails in [00:31:00] thousands of prisoners either. So,
Chris: okay. A good debate to end this episode of today in Ohio. Thank you, Laura. Thank you, Layla. Thank you, Lisa. Thanks to everybody who listens.
We back on Wednesday, I believe Seth Richardson will be here to talk some politics.
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