Debate over electing Cuyahoga County sheriff

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We'll be catching up withith stories from last week for days, I suspect, on today in Ohio. It's the news discussion podcast from Cleveland d. com and the Pain dealer ris Quinn here today with Laura Johnston, Courtney Astofffi and Lla Atasi All right, Laura, how much has Ohio improved its error rate in food stamp payments? and what is the potential fine if it does not improve it to a basic baseline So we're much better than we have been in the past. O The error rate was about nine percent in twenty twenty four, but it's dropped to six point seven six percent last year. That is not low enough. We need to get up below six percent, or we're going to be at about one hundred sixty one million dollars statewide. That's because in the one big beautiful bill federal government They want states have fewer mistakes in paying Snap, which makes sense because this cost money And they're like, if you can't get it down, you're going to be responsible for part of the bill. So this starts in October of twenty twenty seven and anyone with the higher error rates in the whole country is going to be paying part of the cost. Only nine states have managed to get theirer error rates below six percent. isn' necessarily fraud. It's just issues with reporting mostly from the families who get Snap reporting the incorrect information about their income, their job or who lives in the home. So it takes a lot more checking on the part of the government employees, and that's hard to do when you have fewer employees doing the work. I don't know though. I hear six percent erate when I think of a bank bank had a six percent error rate with the money it holds, it would be an outrage, right? People would be screaming bloody murder. Where's my money? How did you lose six percent of my money? What What's going on with you And yet we accept it in government Okay, yeah, six percent. We could screw that up. We don't care. It's just government money. Wh cares anyway It lookook, I don't disagree with you. I think part of the issue is that this isn't a bank where you have You get to pick your customers and you have I don't know, all of this information. This is Who's getting snap what they're reporting from their households and you having to go and check that. I think physically. and it's a thousand randomly selected snap cases. So you don't know what they're checking. I mean, yes, we should have a zero percent error rate. We should know everything about the people who are getting the SnapP benefits and make sure they're getting the right amount. But I think there's just this mismatch. and we already know that there are not a lot of well not enough people working in SnAP that when people call to get help, they're on the phone for a half hour.a Okay, if There's a system They can audit this and find the errors Then why doesn't the system automatically do that. If I can come in behind you and find all these errors, why isn't that system automatic to make sure there's no errors in the first place? I just don't How do we accept errors like that with tax dollars? Proably because it's the government and it's the way it's always been. right? I had a conversation about this yesterday about government and ax and the fact that they just when they like run out of money, they just ask for more money. They never say, okay, what could we be doing to be more efficient and to get with the times And you know, every other business in the modern age is like, well, this doesn't work anymore. What else can we do? And we don't see government doing a lot of that? No, I was right. We're talking about this in detail. We do this on our own company. We constantly remake ourselves deal with the financial challenges. what government does is says, oh Things are tight. let's go soak the taxpayers some more. We'll talk about it tomorrow, but just the likelihood of four county wide tax increases on the ballot in a year where taxpayers have big vatsat tar and feathers w. I just I just don't understand how we can accept an error rate of six percent on something this big. There's we just tolerate absolute incompetence in government, and we shouldn't because we don't tolerate it anywhere else in our lives and it's our money This is a failure of government yet again. Yeah I have a lot of problems with a big, beautiful bill, but this is not one that I think was off the, you know, out of nowhere. I mean, it makes sense that we should be spending the money in the correct places You're listening to today in Ohio President Donald Trump has increased his wealth by over a billion dollars just since he started his second term So, how much of his policies that he instituted in that time? the average Ohio household. They're not raising their money by a billion dollars. Not at all. This information comes to us from the Center for American Progress Action Fund. and they estimate that Ohio families have paid about two thousand one hundred seventy five dollars more since january twenty twenty five because of a combination of higher gas prices rising utility bills and tariffs that have made everyday life more expensive. For families who buy their health insurance through the Affordable Care Act marketplace, the hit is even bigger because Enhanced subsidies expired So their added costs are estimated at nearly five thousand nine hundred dollars through the first half of this year The report from the Action Fund blames four major policy decisions, tariffs and cuts to clean energy incentives that have pushed utility rates higher, the spike in gas prices that followed the conflict with Iran and the expiration of those ACA tax credits. It also says the costs are not done climbing. By the end of the year, the average Ohio household is projected to have paid about three thousand three hundred dollars more while ACA marketplace families could be out more than six thousand three hundred dollars. Now, I mean, it's worth noting that this comes from a liberal think tank. So, you know, prepare for Trump sts to certainly claim that the report unfairly malignes Trump's policies Wait wait though, let's just talk about the tariffs Report on the increase in Trump's wealth showed that his family business is made dozens if not hundreds of trades the day before he would make an announcement on changes in the tariffs and they would jump up their value because they tradeed in the right way. Oh yeah. those tariffs are sticking all of us. The prediction is that by the end of the year because farmers cannot get fertilizer costs which are al reready are sky high are going to skyrocket more. Right. I mean And Donald Trump doesn't care at all. He promised to lower costs on day one for the American public. Remember? And instead Ohio, you know, families are paying more for every single aspect of their lives while He himself has become dramatically richer. R. And I don't know why anyone would reward that record with another vote for his Scophantic followers in Congress who enabled all of this. He's the biggest grifter in the history of that office. He is just conning America to get wealthy. You know, we just went through the two hundred fiftieth birthday and what it means to be a patriot Patriotic to not accept what Donald Trump is doing. We printed the Declaration of Independence in regular Tpeface so you could actually read it. on the front page of the Pain dealer on Saturday. And there were people that said, you know, I haven't read it in years and I was struck by how much complain about King George mirror what Donald Trump is doing. He is visiting the exact same abuses on America that King George did and that's why we became independent It is patriotic today to say no more and get this guy out of office. He should be impeached if the Congress turns This fall. He's a grifter that is conned America. and yet, like you said, there are people saying, he's a great man. He's a great man because they just want their team to win. But it's really indisputable what his policies have done because you could see the impact of each of these happening in real time You know, the tariffs and I mean, all of it, you could see it just rolling steam rolling across the American public. I mean, if a president's policies have left your family paying thousands more, basics while he's added more than a billion dollars to his own fortune What more do you need to know?? I mean, elections are accountability exercises. If your life is less affordable than it was two years ago, the people who made it that way do not deserve your vote No, it's just striking. I guess too back in the days of King George. there were a whole bunch of people in America that were still loyal to King George. There was a great novel written from that standpoint called Oliver Wiswell. But it is amazing to me. there are still people standing behind this guy because he has proven to be the most represrehensible person ever to hold that office and he is just profiting left and right from it You're listening to today in Ohio All right, Courtney, how many natural gas power plants are planned or under construction simply to provide electricity to data centers in Ohio? And why natural gas Yeah, what we know is Ohio's AI boom is driving this rush to build a bunch of natural gas power plants These aren't going to send a single know electron into Ohioans's homes, it's all to support data centers that are supporting AI Energy companies are proposing or building ten of them now in Ohio. And this new report we got from the Environmental Integrity proroject say if all ten of those operate at full capacity, they could emit seventy five million tons of greenhouse gases a year and this It gives Ohio, it really puts us in second place in the nation for the number of new gas plant projects. Only Texas beats us out and Pennsylvania is a little bit behind us But let's zoom out here. What's the need? Why are we doing this? We know AI uses huge amounts of electricity These data centers are just massive size of shopping malls are even larger, packed with these servers needed to run. AI services You know, some of the newest centers are more than a million square feet and that's the size of seventeen football fields. So you got to think you need a lot of juice to power those massive centers And the question here about natural gas, why folks are turning more and more to natural gas is because it's fast, frankly. behind the meter gas plants can be built in about two years. That lets data centers come online much quicker than if they wait for all the rigamarll of new transmission lines, nuclear power or other kind of longer term energy sources. We have seen a move towards nuclear for some facilities in Ohio The gas plants let you do it way quicker and that's why they're starting to get more popular This is all because of Ohio legislature and the governor's failure to have a balanced energy policy. They've done everything they can. to cater to the oil and gas industry. They're in the pocket of it. It's been proven time and time again. You're drilling under accountable acres now pristine land And because of the lack of planning and because of squeezing out any kind of green energy We're in the lurch, but who benefits? The gas industry. It's exactly what these guys want. We should have a much more balanced approach now Nuclear is in the picture because the utility industry wants it the there's all sorts of moves being made to help AP build a new big nuclear plant because that's what the utilities want. and the legislature always gives it to them. It's a shame because the data centers are going to be needed. that it's a fact to life, that they are powering a whole lot of things that benefit all America and they need power because we have done everything we can in Ohio to squeeze out the alternatives, we're going to have lots of CO two going in the air. And remember This is the legislature that declared natural gas green energy and one of the most preposterous declarations we've ever seen. Oh, exactly, that history there of saying natural gas is better than coal or nuclear. I mean, there are arguments be made there, but it is still a fossil fuel putting out greenhouse gases. And we shouldn't lose sight of that Luckily enough in Northeast Ohio, we're not seeing the biggest, you know, kind of natural gas booms. This is more in the southern part of the state The biggest concentration we're seeing in Licking County around New Albany, there's six of those proposed gas plants are locating there. But of course, we got to talk about the one in Pike County, massive. It will be by far the largest in the state. and the largest one in the country We understand that, you know once that one in Pike County' up and running, it'll emit up to about fifty million tons of greenhouse gases a year. And that's more than New York City emitted in all of twenty twenty three. We're poisoning the water. We're poisoning the air. way ago, Mike the Wining Comany, you care about Ohioa You're listening to today in Ohio. You'd think that by now everyone would know that sunshine is a danger to human skin. How much has melanoma increased in recent years, Laura, And why is Generation Z still tanning This is a very good question and I wish that I could explain this to my daughter, who is very much Gen Z, very much checking the UV index because when it's high, she wants to be outside in tanning. and I actually over the weekend had to threaten to take her phone away in order to get her to put on sunscreen. That is insane And melanoma is growing.a wait, wait, what was the correlation between the cell phone and the s? That's the only punishment that works. It's just like they're obsessed with their phone. L, you know, I'm sure we'll talk about this The So that's the motivation for anything Anyway, but the phone is what shows you the UV index, which is not something that I had as a kid, a regular access or even knowledge of But Ohio, you wouldn't think this. Ohio has a higher melanoma incidence rate than the country as a whole And we're a northern state. We're not southern, but we have about twenty five cases per hundred thousand residents between twenty fifteen and twenty nineteen. And that is really climbing from even ten years before So There are these misconceptions about sunscreen. The American Academy of Dermatology found that more than sixteen million Americans have reduced or stopped using sunscreen because of information they found online, this idea that the chemicals in sunscreen is causing cancer. Like no, the sun is causing cancer. I'm floored by the fact that we seem to be getting stupider I don't get it. I grew up in South Jersey. So I was at the beach all the time as a kid. We were all tanned by the end of summer because we didn't know any better and now we all deal with dermatologists every year to find precancer as things We know that's really stupid You and I were talking about d stying this year. I've been seeing all these young girls out laying out getting tan and then you said, o, I love beach reading. I love the layout at the beach. and I'm thinking what I do. This is terrible. You're creating future issues for yourself. You know you shouldn't do it. Why do you do it There is I think it's the same reason people drink alcohol because it feels good, even if you know it's bad for you. Okay, to be clear, I don't layout like with baby oil and tin foil trying to get tan. Okaykay. I wear sunscreen. I you like I've been wearing a hat. The older I get, the less I like sun on my face It's just that I'm out in the afternoon because it's hot and I'm in and out of the pool or in and out of the water at the beach. and I like to like sit there and read my book and drink a diet Coke or, you know, crazy sometimes a beach drink, right? This is my this is my season. I love it. All right. But the result, as Olivia Mitchell reported is a staggering increase in melanoma. Yeah, it's crazy how high it is. So we're at fourteen percent higher than the national average during this period. We're talking about thir five thousand sorry, three thousand five hundred melanoma diagnoses and about ten percent of those were deaths every year and it's very treatable. as soon as you notice it and you should be checking. A lot of people go into the dermatologist annually for a skin check. You can check them on your own. And if you catch it early, it's very, very treatable. Not everybody's clearly doing that Leayl's being very quiet because she just recently returned from a beach trip. I mean st Have you seen me Chris? I have freckles and I am not the person that you will see laying out in the sun. I'm an umbrella person, I'm a rash guard wearing I did block baby. So I did say the other day I was like, if I get any tanner, people are going to be like, do you have a job All right Moving on, you're listening to today in Ohio People who oppose allowing the terminally ill to decide when and how to end their lives in Ohio regularly point to Canada as a lesson in what can go wrong Laya, why is that? And why does a story by Mary Frances McGowan show that the comparison is really apples to oranges when it comes to US policies? Well, so that argument that you're referring to is that Canada started with a limited law and gradually expanded it to include people who are not terminally ill, and that can create a slippery slope Mary Francis' story points out that Canada and the US built their systems on completely different legal foundations. Canada's medical aid and dying law stems from constitutional rights recognized by that country's Supreme Court, and it's governed under federal law That framework has allowed eligibility to expand over time. So today, Canadians don't have to be terminally ill to qualify. They can be suffering from an incurable condition that causes intolerable suffering, even if death is not imminent. Canadian lawmakers are also debating whether to eventually allow people with mental illness alone to qualify and whether people with diseases like Alzheimer's could make advance requests before losing mental capacity The US, though, operates very differently. Our Supreme Court ruled that there is no constitutional right to physician assisted dying. So each state decides for itself. The thirteen states that have legalized it all follow a model that started in Oregon nearly thirty years ago. Those laws limit the option to mentally competent adults who've been diagnosed with a terminal illness and have six months or less to live. Patients have to administer the medication themselves and multiple medical professionals have to confirm that they qualify Mary Francces also, you, she doesn't ignore the criticism of Canada's system in the story. She talks to disability advocates and physicians who worry that some vulnerable people have considered medical aid in dying because of poverty or homelessness or inadequate social services rather than because they truly wanted to end their lives and that important part of that conversation. But the central point of her story is that Canada using Canada as a warning about what Ohio's proposal would inevitably become really skips over some pretty important facts. The legal systems are different. The eligibility standards are different. The safeguards are different. So if Ohio ever passes a physician assisted dying law, it wouldn't resemble Canada's model nearly as much as it would resemble Oregon's and the dozen other American states that have already adopted similar laws I was surprised by the story. It wasn't the direction I thought it was going to go. I thought she was going to a story that says Canada is the warning lesson for could happen here, but it really did the opposite. It pointed out how muchuch more strict. All of the states that have done this in the U S are than what Canada has done. And I think Canada has had some regrets about how loose it's gotten up there. and I wouldn't be surprised to see it rained in a little But I was glad she did the story because the anti folks are really using Canada a lot. R say Canada, Canada, Canada. lookook what will happen. We'll just be letting people die left and right And her story really says, no, that's not true Can I jump in here? Becauseuse I actually had a conversation with my Canadian relatives about this. story and what I had found out. And I didn't realize that it, you know, this came from a Supreme Court. They're the one saying it this isn't like a government J. a law, This is I'm saying, you can't tell someone they can't have medically assisted assistantance in dying. And It's a very different country. like that's you got to remember that They're not coming at it from the same sensibilities. Canada is very, much more progressive, it's more socialistic. And I think there are Concerns, especially about the mentally ill part, which is on pause until at least next March, I believe. But I don't think Canadians are saying, o my God, I can't believe our slippery slope. This is something, I think there are concerns like Layla said about poverty and who has care but remember Canada has federal health insurance, right? Like your health insurance is not tied to your job in Canada. So they' Like you said you all said, right? This is very, very different. I don't think you can talk about the the benefits and the drawbacks, but this is not going to happen here It's a good story. Cck it out It's on Cleveland. com You're listening for today in Ohio All right, Courtney, Cleveland Mayor, Justin Bib had a big win last week with an announcement of a major business to fill the long vacant space where the Hewlet Oloaders once were fabricated. What's the new business Yeah, the former Wellman Sceiver Morgan factory down on Central Avenue, it's going to become a modular home construction facility. Bib told us that MMY, US, the business involved here, plans to redevelop this massive building. It's over one hundred eighty thousand square foot feet and MMY will be the first tenant in what the city is calling this broader development kind of targeted area on the east side called the midline. So this is kind of the big first win for that new initiative we learned about a month or two ago So this project is estimated at twenty six million dollars. They say it could bring up to one hundred and fifty jobs to Cleveland And workers at this factory you know You talk about the Hewtittt Ore connection here. These giant machines helped kind of move iron ore through Cleveland steel economy. Now the idea is to use that same industrial site to help with a very different Cleveland problem of our era, and that's housing MMY uses an assembly line build their houses. They move them through, framing, drywall, cabinets, paint, lighting, all of that is checked happening inside of the factory. and then the home is eventually shipped out to its final destination. Their CEO told us that about eighty five percent of the house is done and finished before it reaches the site. So Bib's been trying to bring a manufacturer like this to Cleveland for 's I think I've been hearing about this for a few years now and he got his win I'm a little bit surprised though that they're setting up in Northeast Ohio because Cuyoga County for instance does not have a lot of land to build houses on. Cleveland does. It has some vacant lots, but these to a market where housing is booming. you have to put them on a big flat bed truck and drive them down the road. We've all seen them on the highway And so I would have thought it body would have wanted to be closer to boom areas than into a place where population is fairly stagnant and we're not really seeing a whole lot going on with housing. Well, you know, Chris, I think Bib's idea here, at least what he was talking about several months ago But earlier in his time as mayor was he wants to do infill opportunities within the city because so much of the city is vacant lots So so Cleveland is struggling with that problem and he wants to help fix it. Now, how many of these homes are going to end up landing in Cleveland That's a question mark. I want to keep an eye on here because if we're just manufacturing and then shipping them out to other parts of the state Well, fair enough, it's still jobs, but it's a little different outcome Although if you can manufacture these at a significantly lower price than a stick built home in place then that would be a great way to solve part of Cleveland's housing problem. So it's a big win to get something into that big cavernous space that's been so long empty to see how it develops over time. You're listening to today in Ohio. This is one of those who kns stories. If you get hurt while hiking in a remote or hard to reach area in Northeast Ohio Who spepecially trained to come to your rescue? And how often are their services needed in any given year? Laura This is the Cuahoga Valley Wilderness Medicine group that would be on the way to rescue you. They're volunteers, doctors, nurses, EMS workers. They've cross trained in wilderness medicine, places that even, you know An ambulance or medical helicopter can't get to immediately. So they know how to assess an injured person's condition for immediate life threats and prepare them for evacuation. They use ropes and stretchers and medical supplies. They can get down a sixty foot embankment to reach an injured person, stabilize the leg, and then set up a poulley system to get back up to safety So obviously the National Park would be huge about this. and they've been around aboutbout fifteen years, and they have agreements with various emergency response teams throughout Northeast Ohio to get to help in up to three dozen times a year. And because they're volunteers, it's like they get a call and they go if they can. Like the one guy said was like, if I'm just mowing my lawn, I just drop everything and go It's great. It's a wonderful service, but wouldn't you be mortified if you needed it I feel like the people who do these this is, you know, people who are very active and athletic or maybe they're doing something they shouldn't be, right? Like they're just daredevils. There's still people who fallen and can't get up. I mean, it's still I'd be mortified I mean, I think I'd be mortified anytim I needed EMS services, but at least you were doing something cool when it happened. But hopefully people are taking proper precautions and these they are not being stupid and thoughtless when they're in this predicament. No Heroes among us, You're listening to today in Ohio All right, Lela, should anyone be surprised that elected sheriffs in other Ohio counties want to return to an elected sheriff in Cyoga Cy? Surprise, surprise. What reasons did they offer for this? Yeah, we shouldn't be surprised. Yeah. last week, this group of sheriffs from across Ohio showed up before C Kyoga County Council to urge the council to put a charter amendment on the November ballot that would restore an elected sheriff here. And these are all elected sheriffs. So of course, they believe that the public should get to choose its chief law enforcement officer. But they made a practical argument to support their position. They said Cyaga County's appointed system has produced a lot of instability while elected sheriffs elsewhere have been able to build continuity and run their departments with more independence. And the example that stood out came from neighboring Summit County. Sheriff Candy Fathery pointed out that since Summit adopted a charter government nearly fifty years ago, it's had just five sheriffs Kyoga by comparison has gone through about nine in only fifteen years. So she argued, that's because appointed sheriffs ultimately answer to the county executive and that creates constant turnover and power struggles whenever that relationship sours. That's exactly what's happening now. Sheriff Harold Preel is suing county executive Chris Rain over control of hiring and budgeting and other administrative functions. and Preel says he's been blamed for budget overruns, even though the executive's office knowingly underfunded the department. Fathery said that's not how it works in Summit. She works collaboratively with county leaders, but she has the final say over running her office and preparing the budget that she believes she needs Now of course, looming over this discussion was the reason Kayaga abandnoned elected sheriffs in the first place. The last elected sheriff was Gerald McFall. He pleaded guilty to corruption during the scandal that led to charter government. So supporters admit that electing a sheriff is not a cure all. You can elect a bad sheriff just as easily as you can appoint one But their argument is just that after fifteen years of revolving door leadership and these ongoing battles between the sheriff and the executive, maybe it's time to try Yeah the other model. And they say the person responsible for law enforcement should ultimately answer to voters, not another politician Which is utter nonsense, right? Because in every city in America, the police chief answers to the mayor know this has only stealed my resolve against having an elected sheriff. I think it's just utter nonsense. They're just selfish, self interested people coming in trying to change it back because they don't want to see this movement. The sheriff is an antiquated position It goes back hundreds of years and it's kind of silly at this point. What does sheriffs really do They run jails.. That should be a professional corrections person who knows the current philosophies of how to operate jails. notot some elected dufist who just goes out and charms people. You need professional people in this. And I think having the executive have the ability to find the best is the way to go. It's a failure so far in Cya County because we keep electing losers We haven't had good county executives and that results in failure all around. I mean, we can't even get tax bills out on time because we keep electing the wrong people Part of that is because we're one party system. Democratic machine keeps keeps putting losers on the ballot that we're stuck with. We as the voters, do a better job of picking leaders Now you have talked in the past though about potentially supporting the idea of going back to a county commissioner system right? Yeah. I have. but how how would the appointed sheriff fit in with that?, you wouldn't. If you went back to a charter system, everybody be elected. You'd be electing the engineer again for crying out loud. Look, our problem isn't No system works if you have losers in Right. It's the people which structure. And we are doing a terrible job in Cuyoga County picking our leaders. we have from the beginning. And so we keep spinning our wheels trying to say, let's change the system instead of demanding reform and how we do it. We should have an open primary That would end it. If you had an open primary where it wasn't just the Democrats running the table, everybody could vote We might start getting some professional people to run. But right now the party anoints it. and who who does that It's the labor unions. and the labor unions are just businesses that make money off of dues. So their goal is to bloat government as much as possible, get as many people on the public payroll as possible, so they make more money. It's just the whole system is crooked right now because it's a single party We need to have a two party system in Cyua County. We need it on the state level as well. And until we figure that out by changing our election system, we're going to be stuck having these conversations interminably H're here You're listening to today in Ohio, and that is it for the Tuesday episode. Thanks Laura. Thanks Courtney. Thanks Lela. Thank you for being here. We'll return Wednesday to talk about the news.