Conviction of Officers in Medina Bar Attack

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And it is the first story we're discussing on today in Ohio. It's the news discussion podcast from cleveland. com and the Plain Dealer. I'm Chris Quinn here with Courtney Astofi, Lisa Garvin and Laeil Atassi , Leila Atassi, you think after all this time, Leila, I could say your name right . We've been using that unthinkable number of one billion dollars whenever we talk about the number of our tax dollars being given away to private schools in Ohio . We now have the stats for the most recent school year. Courtney has the number dropped . Oh no, it is continuing to go up . So for this school year through may fifteenth, that bill for our voucher program has crossed the one billion mark yet again . Like I said, the meter's still running so we can expect some more money to be added to that total . But as of that point in May we were at one point zero two seven billion dollars to private schools. And that's representing one hundred seventy three thousand students in change across Ohio's five vote voucher programs . So we'll see how that final figure shakes out, but state folks were projecting that the spending would hit one point seven five billion for this past school year, and these figures show us we're on track to hit that mark. We know this number has just been skyrocketing over the past few school years. Ohio paid one point zero nine five billion school year and a year before that it was at nine hundred sixty four million . So if you add all that up, taxpayers have spent over three point one billion dollars on vouchers just over the past three school years . This explosion began after lawmakers expanded one of those voucher programs in twenty twenty three, as we know, to include families of all income levels. And we know that that means even higher earning families are getting some of these state subsidies . Before that change and before that expansion of the program, we were spending just six hundred ten million on vouchers in the twenty two twenty, three school . So the numbers show us how our tab as taxpayers has just exploded once we've started paying for these higher earning families. This program was never designed for this. It was originally designed to help kids in failing urban districts have some choices and it has gotten ridiculously out of hand and people are angry about it. They know that public schools are a foundation of a democratic society . And as you cause them to wither and fail by starving them of cash while funneling money to more and more wealthy people to pay private schools , you make the divide between the haves and have nots much, much bigger and people are angry about it. It's one of the things that I think are on their minds as they go to the polls this year. We've said over and over again, if the legislature truly believed in this, they would put it before the voters for a vote up or down. Should we continue the voucher program ? I think it would lose overwhelmingly and it doesn't fit their fringe constituent philosophy. But this is it's obscene that more than a billion dollars a year goes to private school of our tax dollars when we've already committed our money to the public school system It's worth reminding our listeners that, you know, we've picked through these numbers. We've analyzed these state numbers. And we found that many of these kids were likely already in private school because the rise in voucher recipients over the past few years didn't match drops in public school enrollment. We've also learned from the Ohio Legislative Service Commission that in the first year of universal income eligibility , nearly one fifth of state spending on private schools went to families in those top income brackets. So you're right, Chris, this divide is apparent just in the figures we get from the state . Going back deep into American history, the compact has always been communities get together to provide equal education to everybody. We had segregated schools for a while, so it wasn't equal. But for decades now, the goal has been equal education for everybody subsidized by the public. If you chose not to go to a public school and went to a private school that was on you. They've completely turned that upside down and they're squandering huge amounts of tax dollars needlessly. I mean, just compare this voucher program to what we're spending for public schools. General Assembly this school year budgeted about ten billion from the general fund and that covers one point five million students . But you know, the ratio when you're looking at how much we're paying per kid on the v oucher program. It's quite a disparity . You're listening to today in Ohio . The hemp situation in Ohio just becomes more and more of a mess with every passing day . Do we have a second judge in Ohio finding enough problems with the state's hemp beverage ban to block it, Lisa? What is this case? Yes, he's federal judge Jeffrey Helmick in Toledo and he blocked enforcement of a law that bans the sale of hemp beverages . This is in response to a lawsuit that was filed by ten makers of hemp beverages. Judge Helmick found that it was a likely violation of a federal law that gives Congress power to regulate interstate commerce . This enforcement block will be in effect for fourteen days and then they're going to have a hearing for a preliminary injunction. That's to be determined. And Helmock says he understands Ohio's concerns about regulating hemp products, but enforcing an unconstitutional statute is just not in the public interest. So attorney for the plaintiff's Andy Mail says he's thrilled says this. He would an eleventh hour provision added to Senate Bill fifty six without debate and it kept Ohio companies from sourcing hemp from out of state and barred out of state companies from selling here in Ohio. Now the Ohio att orney general is reviewing the ruling. They're considering their next steps, but they say that Senate Bill fifty six was enacted because hemp products were flooding into Ohio from out of state free of oversight. The problem with this the way we do laws in Ohio is they're always rushed. There's often little discussion on the big ones. There's lots of discussion on little ones. We've been writing a lot of stories about those this year , but on something like this that requires study and cogent thought, they jam it through. Sometimes you don't even realize they're doing it until it's done. And in this case, they jammed it through , but they didn't prohibit it until the end of the year. And Mike DeWine, who had never once spoken against hemp beverages, wielded a line, wielded a line item veto to make them illegal almost immediately . Everything about this was cooked. If we had been thoughtful, if we had thought this through , we might have a law that works. But now we have two judges saying, When I look at this law, I see a lot of reasons why it's not going to stand, and that's why they put the injunction on. So I guess for the next fourteen days, these people can sell hemp beverages in Ohio. Apparently, I know I would if I was, you know, trying to sell them. And you know, we've talked about this on the podcast and I loved what Layla had to say about THC beverages. You just gotta freakin' try 'em . But this is something that's growing in popularity as alcohol is declining in popularity, I mean, don't they want the revenue from this at least? Yeah, it was just knee jerk. It's so many times we see it. We saw it last week on a bunch of stuff that's suddenly flooded through and it's just not the way to pass good laws . They need to be more thoughtful here . You're listening to today in Ohio. Cleveland police are well known for getting huge payouts when they retire. They bank vacation time early in their careers and cash out at their highest rate of pay when they retire. They work as much overtime as possible in their final years to artificially inflate the pay rate their pensions are based on. And now, Leila, there's a third way we've written about that they cash out big time and it's costing us millions. What is it? The third way, Chris is something called comp time. And it's arguably the probably the least understood of the bunch . Here's how it works. Instead of getting paid for overtime when they earn it, many Cleveland police officers can bank those extra hours and save them for years . Then when they retire , the city cuts them a check based on their current pay rate, not the pay rate they earned when they worked those hours . So if an officer banked hundreds or even thousands of overtime hours as a patrol officer and then retires decades later as a higher paid supervisor , all those hours get cashed out at that much higher rate . That's how former Cleveland police officer and current Kaiga County Sheriff Harold Pretel ended up collecting nearly one hundred seventy three thousand dollars a year from Cleveland after leaving city employment. He had accumulated more than six thousand four hundred hours of banked overtime worth about four hundred forty one thousand dollars. And he is far from alone. Cleveland paid out forty four million dollars in separation pay over the last four years . That includes fifty seven checks worth more than one hundred thousand dollars. Public safety director Wayne Drummond and District Commander Sami Morris each saw their total compensation approach four hundred thousand dollars because of retirement payouts that were tied largely to that banked overtime. The city says, you know, this is all legal, they budget for it , and this is very common in government. Federal law does not allow private employers generally to substitute comp time for overtime pay , but Congress created an exception for state and local governments in the eighties. Cleveland says it's one of the benefits that helps public employers compete for workers with the private sector. Still, these are eye popping numbers. Police separation payouts alone have run between five million and seven million a year recently. And at one point, the city estimated it owed employees ninety million in accumulated leave and comp time liabilities if everyone were to walk out the door at once . In fairness , this is money they earned and if the city , when they didn't pay it, had put that money into an interest bearing account, it would have climbed and maybe even been able to pay what they're getting now, or if the officers took the money in real time and invested it. It might have climbed up near where they're getting paid out. It's just this is a benefit they get that no one else gets. And when you add it to the other benefits, they walk out with a lot of money. I actually am less offended by this and the sick time. I mean a lot of public employees get a percentage of their sick time. They don't get it all like the cops do. The one that I think should be stopped ed immiately is this game they do with their pension. When they know they're a few years from retiring, they work as much overtime as they can to boost their total annual pay and that's what the pension is based on. And we can easily fix that right now with a simple law that says your pension is based on a forty hour paycheck, forty hour week paycheck. It doesn't matter how much overtime you get in those years , it's based on what your total pay would be sands over time because that's the scam. That's what weakens the pension system is these guys that will get tens and tens of thousands of extra dollars in overtim and then their pension for the rest of their lives is higher . Yes, I agree that that is crap, but I also disagree that the comp time isn't also a scam , because to your point investing, if this were about helping employees save and, you know, be comfortable in retirement, the city could just put the money a retirement account when the overtime is earned and that money would grow in the market and that would benefit employees without costing taxpayers anything more. Instead, we've got taxpayers effectively writing an interest free option contract for these employees. The employee gets to wait and see whether their pay rate rises over the course of their career. And if it does, taxpayers pay that increased value that accumulated over time . That is crazy. Why not just let the money get invested at the time it's earned and let it sit in the market Okay , you're listening to today in Ohio . Perhaps the coolest story over the past few days has been about the Metropark's new boating center on Lake Erie. This thing looks like a treasure, Courtney. What makes it so? Yeah, let's start with the location . This new metropark's lakefront draw is sitting right at East fifty fifth Street Marina, right off the highway , and you know, they're calling it the Patrick S. Parker Community Sailing Center. And the CEO of Betro Parks, Brian Zimmerman says this location was intentional. There's about one hundred twenty thousand vehicles a day that pass by on the Shoreway and ,Zim merman described this building as a billboard aimed at drawing people to the lakefront more, which we all know Cleveland needs more, lakefront attractions and amenities, and that's exactly what Metropark set out on this building to accomplish. This is a nearly twenty million dollars sailing center, but don't think it's just sailing classes out there. This place boasts a year round restaurant. It's got a bar, patio. It's going to be hooked up to this network of trails that were expanding out eastward from downtown . And last but not least, there's just some sweeping views of Lake Erie. It sounds like quite a gem down here. It's already been quietly opening in pieces kind of over the last few weeks. The full opening is coming soon, but you can already pop down there, get some dining or drinks on the patio. There's a small store selling bait and snacks as construction crews are wrapping up the final touches on this . So the official openings june twenty third . And if you're looking for sailing classes and to take advantage of this new amenity in that way those are expected to begin later this summer or this fall . To boot, there's a summer concert series kicking off and that's starting up now with concerts from five to eight PM every Saturday through late August . I heard from somebody who read this story who said everything Brian Zimmerman and the Metropark's touches turns to gold. Can we just give him Berkley for an airport right now Stop any messing around, just turn it over to him because this is the one agency that repeatedly seems to have crystal clear visions about what recreation should be this is spectacular. It's opening up a piece of the lakefront and and recreational opportunities that are unprecedented on that side of town. It's I just you got to salute Zimmerman. He continues to do great things as the leader of our beloved metro parks . You know, I couldn't agree more, Chris. And I think we'd all agree that Cleveland does, you know, we've got plenty of lake and river facing amenities, but I'd say not nearly enough . And it's nice to see the metro parks recognize that and push more into this space. This new sailing center, it includes a restaurant called the Galley and this is going to be the Metro Parks second year round restaurant. It'll be the first on the lakefront too . They do all this without debt . They live on the taxes, the small tax rate that we create. You have to continuously be astounded at the success they've had with everything they touch. This is this is magic and the readers loved it . So nice job . You're listening to today in Ohio. All right, Lisa, has Jadie Vance decided yet whether he's running for president in two years ? No, but his schedule and his positions might believe that. He had an interview on CBS on Sunday with Robert Costa. And in that interview, he said, I haven't decided to run for president in twenty twenty eight. He says, I try not to make decisions until I absolutely must. He says he's keeping his attention on the vice president job right now, but he says Trump does bring up the succession a lot, sometimes in public, sometimes in private. But Trump has also said that there are many capable people who could be the next president, not exactly endorsing Vance at this point . Vance and his wife, Usha also haven't decided on a name for their fourth child, which is coming soon. Usha and he says they brainstorm separately and then they go through their list of names and veto them until they find one that they both like. And he's on the stump for his new book, Communion, Finding My Back to Faith, which comes out today . It's about his conversion to Catholicism back in twenty nineteen . And he said about the book, he said, maybe it will say something interesting about the role of Christianity in American life that people will pick up on. But here's the things that make people think that he's probably going to run for president. The Republican National Committee made Vance their Finance Chair last year. So that's a direct line to donors. And then he has a busy travel schedule. He's doing a lot, you know , a lot of foreign travel and so on and so forth. All right, let me ask you this . Does anybody want in the White House as the leader of America someone who says he doesn't make a decision until he absolutely has to . What kind of way is that to lead? Oh, I'll just put it off until the absolute last minute. Okay, the Russian missiles are coming in. I guess I should decide whether to push the button. That is the looniest way to lead I've ever heard. You're supposed to be forceful and thoughtful and make decisions that move things forward. Not sit back until the very last minute and say, well, I guess I got to do something now . I can't believe he said those words out loud. Yeah, no, that struck me too immediately when I read the story, but I also know that he's probably walking a tightrope with Trump. I mean, he doesn't want to, you know, upset Trump at all. You know, and Trump is already, you know, he hasn't, you know, anointed Vance yet. Who knows who he might anoint , you know. So right, Layla Courtney, next time you ask me for a day off. I'm not gonna tell you till midnight, the day before. Does that sound like a good idea? Great way to lead, Chris. You're listening to today in Ohio. We've said repeatedly that lead paint poisoning is the single biggest crisis in Cleveland. We have the city's latest report which shows some progress , but in the end, the numbers are still devastating, Lela. What does the report show? Well, the city reported that poisoned lead poisoning rates among young kids continued to decline in twenty twenty five, and health officials say preliminary numbers suggest they may be headed toward a third straight year of improvement this year . Fewer kids showed elevated lead levels across most categories, which is undeniably great news . But hundreds of Cleveland kids are still being poisoned by lead every year. Lead exposure can permanently damage a kid 's developing brain, and Cleveland's rate remains dramatically higher than many other Ohio cities. In twenty twenty four, about thirteen percent of the kids tested in Cleveland had elevated blood lead levels compared with about six percent in Akron in Toledo, three percent in Cincinnati, and just over one percent in Columbus . The report also shows that testing remains a problem. Only about a third of Cleveland kids are being tested for lead , and that rate has been stuck for years. Fewer one year olds are getting tested than a few years ago . And all of this comes as the city has really stumbled badly in its own lead abatement efforts. Cleveland recently lost three point three million dollars of a four point nine million dollars state grant after wrapping the program and restrictions that the state never required. That was completely self inflicted red t ape. A separate city memo revealed that nearly eight hundred voicemails from parents and landlords and health providers seeking help with led safe housing programs had gone unheard for almost two years . So really the takeaway here is that the trendline is moving in the right direction and that is definitely worth celebrating, but when hundreds of kids are still being poisoned each year and Cleveland continues to post some of the worst numbers in Ohio. It's really hard to call this anything but a crisis that is far from being solved. Yes, it remains an epidemic. The reason I say it's devastating is two hundred plus kids . They're born with a certain potential. Everybody comes into this world with potential. Lead pain steals that potential. It damages their brains in ways that cannot be changed. It makes it harder for them to learn and studies have shown time after time they are more likely to get into criminal trouble, more likely to be addicted to drugs, less likely to find good relationships. It is doom for these kids to have lead in their system . And even though we're doing better , we still have hundreds of kids a year who will not meet their potential . Yes, absolutely. And you know, we're talking about a crisis that permanently damages their brains , and yet the city is only testing about a third of the kids , and we should be testing, obviously all of the households where these kids are living. I mean, imagine if the city announced that crime was down, but it admitted it only looked for crime in a third of the neighborhoods . I mean the lead numbers may be getting better and I hope they are. But if two thirds of kids aren't being tested, how certain can we really be that we're seeing the full picture? You're listening to today in Ohio . Governor Mike DeWine signed Ohio's three point seven billion dollars capital budget Monday and we have yet to talk about it on this podcast. Courtney, what are some of the major items it will pay for this funding, it's going to go towards a wide range of work, water sewer upgrades, school construction and renovation, behavioral health facilities, museum expansions, parks. The list goes on. Most of the money about, three point five billion out of the three point seven billion , go to what we call statewide priorities. That includes six hundred forty five million for local infrastructure projects, over six hundred million dollars for school construction and nearly four hundred million for those behavioral health facilities . But there's about two hundred million in there for community projects that are requested by local governments and nonprofit organizations. In the run up to the state budget , local officials all try and get together and figure out, all right, what are we going to put our hands out for this year? And we learned that in Cuyahoga County, this round of money includes about ten million for projects at the Cleveland Museum of Art, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Severance Hall, and Playhouse Square. There's also some money that's going to go towards improvements at James Day Park in Parma , a shared use path at Edgewater Park. There's some money for Blossom , as well as the EJ Thomas Performing Arts Hall in Akron , and there was some for the Giaga County Fairgrounds. You know what bothers me about this list? And it's every year you see this, the Rockhall, the museum, the orchestra . They get huge bites of tax dollars. And the Rock Hall has an ability to raise money from private donors that is unprecedented . So I would argue they don't need it. But as you drive around Cleveland , you drive around on top of roads that rattle your bones. You go into suburbs that are broke and need help . And I just wonder about the priorities here. Why do we keep giving money to these arts institutions that are doing fine now while allowing where people live to continue to languish. I would far prefer at this point to see money going to Maple Heights and Garfield Heights and Parma and the suburbs that are crippled by the loss of local government fund money to help make the quality of life better where people live . You know, I think you raised a great point here. You know, a good chunk of the capital budget is pieced out in the form of these state grants that help local infrastructure projects like what you're talking about . But I'm sure the communities would say we would gladly take a lot more because that help doesn't nearly cover our needs. And you talk about the declining tax revenue in these communities. You're right, they'll probably never catch up without an infusion of cash somewhere. We are so built out. We have so many roads, so many fewer people than were those roads were originally built to serve . Where do we go from there? All right, you're listening to today in Ohio. Remember how the Weasels and the Cleveland US Attorney's Office inexplicably dropped their investigation of two cops, including a Cleveland officer who terrorized an immigrant at a Medina bar . It's a good thing that county prosecutors had the backbone to see it through . What is the punishment for the Cleveland officer, Leila? Yeah, the punishment turned out to be more serious than I think a lot of people expected when this case first started. Former Cleveland Police Officer Donald Kopch ick was sentenced Monday to eighteen months in prison after a Medina County jury convicted him of ethnic intimidation , abduction and assault for his role in the twenty twenty four attack on Yonas Bo ker Dingle, who is illegal immigrant from Eritrea, who was working in Ohio as a truck driver at the time. You'll remember the facts of this case, Kopchik and former Lake County Narcotics Officer Daniel Layjack were off duty at the Buzzard's Roost in Hinkley when they began questioning Boker Dingle about his immigration status. Witnesses testified that Layak accused him of being in the country illegally and told him he wasn't free to leave , and then Kopchek physically forced him out of the bar and tackled him outside. Federal authorities initially investigated it and as you said, declined to prosecute this case. Medina County prosecutor Forrest Thompson picked it up instead and a local jury ultimately convicted Kopchek on felony charges. The prosecutor had called this a clear case of ethnic intimidation that divided the community and the judge must have agreed because the sentence includ es prison time plus at least a year of supervision after his release . The other officer Layjack cut a deal. He pleaded guilty to attempted abduction and got three months in jail in exchange for testifying against Cop jack It was sinful that the U. S. Attorney's Office, which was on this case just summarily dropped it. The county prosecutor sat back and said, Well, I can't let this go. These guys deserve to face justice . So he took it on when it was clearly a federal civil rights case. I guess the upside to it being a state charge is Donald Trump can't pardon these guys, which he could have done if it had gone in federal court. But we used to have this very strong U. S. Attorney's office in Cleveland and it's all but gone. Yeah, yeah. You know, I think one of the that strikes me about this case is that people can tend to get distracted by the fact that the victim was ultimately in the country legally . And that fact makes the officers look foolish, but it isn't the only thing that made their conduct wrong . I think the deeper issue is that the Constitution doesn't protect only people who can prove they're innocent. It protects everyone from arbitrary exercises of government power. So I mean, imagine for a moment that the officers had guessed correctly and this was an undocumented immigrant. Would that suddenly make it acceptable for two off duty cops sitting in a bar to decide that he wasn't free to leave and drag him outside and physically restrain him? No , no not at all. So I think that's that's a part of the story that is very important to keep in mind. It would have been nice. They wouldn't have prosecuted if under that situation is my bet. Yeah, probably not . But it's not just that they incorrectly were identified as immigration status, but whether or not they had the authority to do what they did to him . All right, you're listening to today in Ohio, that does it for the Tuesday episode. Thanks, Courtney. Thanks Lisa. Thanks Leila. Thank you for being with us. We will return on Wednesday to talk about the news