Grandparents Promoting Vaccine Awareness

In the news business, you have big news days and you have small news days. Yesterday was a small news day. Let's see if it makes for a podcast episode. It's today in Ohio, the news discussion podcast from Cleveland.com and the Plain Dealer. I'm Chris Quinn here with Courtney Astolfi, Lisa Garvin, and Laura Johnston. And Lisa, first, a couple of lawmakers proposed a cap on incomes for receiving private school vouchers. Now a progressive group is going hard at the vouchers. What's the strategy and what does this say about the way Ohioans feel about this billion dollar plus program. Yeah, this coalition is called Honesty for Ohio Education, and they've launched a website called the Voucher Accountability Project. It's called vouchersaren's free dot org. It has fact sheets for six hundred and nine of Ohio's six hundred and eleven school districts, so almost all of them, and the information includes enrollment numbers, how much state funding each district receives, and the number of voucher recipients in each district that are in the EdChoice, EdChoice Expansion, or the Cleveland Scholarship Program. They're pressuring public officials to increase accountability and transparency at private schools, something we've been talking about a lot on this podcast. House Speaker Matt Huffman says greater accountability is really unnecessary because families can leave poor performing private schools. And he said the best example of accountability is parents who willingly send their child to that school. So this coalition, their long-term goal is to end ed choice, ed choice expansion and the Cleveland programs, which may require a voter constitutional amendment. And these fact sheets show a lot of information too. They show budget and staff cuts, funding disparities among school districts. For example, the Cleveland Heights University Heights School District, they spend about $1,074 per student in a private school, it's up to eighty four hundred dollars at at the high school level per student. In my text message this morning, I wonder whether this becomes the third huge issue on people's minds as they go to the ballot this fall. We know we have people angry about how high their property taxes are because the legislature has given away billions of dollars of tax breaks to rich people. People are angry They're angry about data centers because that has enriched the power companies, but it has cost us huge amounts of money and higher bills, and it turns out more billions given away to the wealthy. This is the the third that I think might be angering people as they walk into the ballot. You might have a critical mass for the first time in Ohio with strong Democratic candidates at the top of the ticket playing to what people care about while the Vake Ramaswamy hobnobs with rich people. And big issues that are on people's minds that they're not on the ballot, but they're on their minds. I think the Republicans that have been heaping abuse onto the electorate for years now We've had two legislative things come out in the past couple of weeks to try and rein them in, although not really, and now this populist group going out saying these are bad. How do you think that plays? Well, I think the reality is starting to hit home about this billion dollars and voucher money because look at the look at menor they they're gonna try a third levy the their prior two levies failed people are finding that their schools are having to cut budgets they're having to cut staff because they're not getting the money because it's going to private schools. So I I think the reality is really starting to hit the road here for a lot of people and they're angry about it. And here's the thing, I don't know, you know, because private schools don't have to take everybody who applies. And I think that that would be an interesting story is how many people have applied to a school and gotten rejected. Well, and Matt Huffman's argument that we don't need to measure them like we measure public schools, because if people don't like it, they can they can go to a different school is preposterous. You're basically saying we'll let these private schools operate in secrecy, even though it's with tax ours. What people don't remember, this started as a help for large urban districts that were failing. It was a very small budget thing for people in poverty that couldn't afford to go to private school. This was to help them if their parents are frustrated have a choice. And then the Republicans very quietly turned it into this monstrosity where it's more than a billion dollars a year, lots of it going to wealthy people to help them pay for private schools. Never the intention. Nobody ever suggested we should do that. And we now have a judge, two sets of judges now, saying it's unconstitutional. I think that this wave is only gonna continue to grow as more, you know, school district say, hey, we're gonna have to cut programs because of this. I think that Amy Acton and Sherid Brown in particular have an opportunity to use this messaging about data centers, property taxes, vouchers, and get turnout. They can get angry people to turn out and turn back the tide that has taken over where these folks in the state house think they can do whatever they want, irregardless of what their constituents think. Fascinating moment. We have a very interesting political season ahead. You're listening to today in Ohio. How is Cleveland the latest city to take on Airbnb style short-term rentals, Courtney. Yeah, this is the culmination of basically six years of debate. It's really ramped up over the last couple years, and city council finally made an official move on this. And the new rules that they approved Monday are going to require licenses for Airbnb owners and other, you know, verbos and other rentals of that style. Their rules are also going to cap how many short-term rentals can operate on a block and this would create fines for owners who break the rules. Now there's a six month grace period here for the city to kind of stand up its system to enforce the rules, but these are coming uh, you know, half a year from now. Council members tell us they've spent years fielding complaints about these unregulated homes, everything from trash to code violations to large parties, which we know can sometimes end in violence . And under this new law, owners are going to have to go out and actually obtain a city license to operate these, pay $150 annually. They'll have to collect hotel taxes for the city here and designate someone who can respond to complaints within an hour. But perhaps the biggest change is this density cap we're looking at. Short-term rentals are going to be limited to 10% of the homes on a block or within a building and that's getting some pushback from folks who who who own these properties in the city. But for what it's worth, the city estimates there's about nine hundred to fifteen hundred total across Cleveland. Can we step back here for a minute and talk about the illogic parts of this, illogical parts of this? When you buy a house in a neighborhood, you're buying into a neighborhood of residential homes. You you have no expectation or or any reason to think that somebody would be using their home, their residential house as a hotel. That that that's what city zoning rules are for. There are areas where hotels can be built and there are areas that are for residential housing. I don't understand how this whole movement is legal at all. This is not what neighbor hoods are about. And if I'd buy a house in a neighborhood, I should be able to have an expectation that I'm not going to have transient housing next door every day of the week. You know, I I'm sure there are plenty of residents who feel this way, Chris, especially when you're living around maybe a house that gets raucous more often and and and say the homes that do end up hosting the parties on the fly. I I get the frustrations there for sure. On the other hand, the folks who own and operate these properties say, you know, we own the property. This is a kind of at this point a long-standing practice. There's demand for Airbnbs. There's clearly folks who want to buy and stay in them. They feel like they're entitled to use their property that they've purchased in this way. Yeah, but I don't buy it. They bought into a residential neighborhood. If you buy into a residential neighborhood, you're talking about long-term residents. This is completely violates the whole idea of what a neighborhood community is. I just don't see how cities don't say no that that you can do if you want to do this , you can do it maybe in the downtown core where hotels are allowed or something. But when you're talking out in the residential neighborhoods, it should be you should be able to prohibit it altogether. I wouldn't want one of these next to me. You bought a house not too long ago. How would you feel if suddenly next door got a neon sign to let ? Th there is a debate there. There is an Airbnb kind of kitty corner to me and and folks are coming and going often. It's never proved a problem. But again, if if it does prove to be a problem, I can see the frustration there for sure. You know, on the industry side here, uh the number of these is kind of what's become the flashpoint in in this Cleveland debate. The these short term rental owners are say that they're on board with much of this law, but where they've got a problem, and I think that's where your argument comes in, Chris . Is that they're objecting to the density limits here. They don't want there to be any limits on or or or these limits on how many can operate in a given area. Yeah, well, I would make it zero. I there's there's a reason you're not allowed to open uh a drug store in your house, right? Because it's a residential neighborhood. You're basically turning residential neighborhoods into places of business. So it it it's good that Cleveland's trying to keep their neighborhoods calm. I just don't know why they don't go the whole way. You're listening to today in Ohio. At the moment, Democrats can't get anything done in Washington, but that doesn't stop them from trying. How is Congresswoman Chantel Brown taking on housing issues, including lead, Laura? Well she wants to make it more affordable for her constituents. That's a huge complaint when she asks them what they think and that what she should be tackling. About eighty percent believed housing costs are too high. So she has a package of housing legislation she says is gonna lower costs and remove toxic lead from homes in northeast Ohio, which as we know is a huge problem here. So we're talking about four bills that Brown plans to introduce this summer. And you're right, while Democratic bills don't have a lot of likelihood of passing, we're getting the word out here. The Housing Supply Fund Act would create a competitive program within the Treasury Department to fill financing gaps that already hold back affordable housing construction. There's something called a how affordable housing prevention and sorry preservation and protection act that would establish new HUD authority to intervene when there's distressed HUD multifamily properties that could be deteriorating or foreclosing. And then two other bills target lead. There's get the lead out, and that would have a new federal grant to replace lead pipes and fixtures and taps. And then there's something called the Replace Act that would strengthen HUD and Safe Drinking Water Act for Fed lead paint and pipe removal. So that's specifically in the water system. Yeah, I would like to see more about lead paint though from her. She represents Cleveland, and Cleveland's big lead problem is the paint, much less the the the water pipe. Water. And we are we are s just starting, I think, with Rebecca Maher in place to actually tackle the lead paint issue, but it's an enormous issue That Cleveland is the second most affordable metro area in the country after Wichita, Kansas, where our median home sale price is $262, 2 50 . Which I guess that's better than most metro areas. Still sounds like a lot if you're saving for your first home. I mean that's the median. So there's a lot of houses that are more expensive than that. And clearly that's not just Cleveland. That's Cleveland and the surrounding areas. Okay. You're listening to today in Ohio. Dallas Mavericks are currently in an agreement to buy a 104-acre former shopping mall site that's 20 minutes away from their current stadium in downtown Dallas. In a statement from the team, they said we have a chance to create a vibrant mixed-use development with green space, restaurants, and family-friendly experiences. And they said it will be a meaningful economic catalyst for the Dallas area. The MAVs are part of a growing trend among sports team owners to pair their new stadiums with mixed-use developments. One of them includes the Kansas City Chiefs. They have plans to move from Kansas City, Missouri to Kansas City, Kansas into a new $3 billion stadium. The Chicago Bears are planning to move to either Arlington Heights, Illinois, or Hammond, Indiana. It's surprising how many of them are doing this, but I guess they believe that commerce develops around stadiums and they're going to be part of it. I mean the Hasm's vision for Brook Park, if it comes to fruition, will completely change that part of the county. Yeah, it will. And you know, and this is kind of on a tangent, but I went to Berea yesterday, and you know they're adding to that cross-country mortgage campus, you know, where the Browns are. Well, they've they're they're tearing things down. They're you know, the the construction has started. They're building a hundred and fifty apartments and a hundred and forty hotel rooms there. And that's right next to the airport. Yeah, that what they did there, they quietly had bought up m that neighborhood that's near their training facility and put together a development plan that will probably be pretty special. I mean Berea is very excited about what it'll mean. I think it includes some sports fields for kids. It does. Yeah. So it's it's a cool thing. Look, there are challenges in Brook Park. I mean I I have no doubt that the Haslungs will build a spectacular stadium. The people who go to that stadium will be in The question is, we if you put residences out there, does anybody really want to live there overlooking the airport? Can they build the entertainment district? Now the concert facility just might work out there. So they have a vision. They're mostly using their own money. Uh and it'll be interesting to see ten years from now what h has developed into. And it'll be interesting to see how Cleveland suffers or doesn't suffer because of this development too. Exactly. Exactly. Although if we close Burke and we develop that, I think we'll be ahead. You're listening to today in Ohio. How is a Cuyahoga County Councilman working to reduce the chances kids will get shot by police for carrying things that look like guns, Courtney? Yeah, this idea comes from Councilman Michael Hauser and he plans to introduce what he's calling the Tamir Rice Act and that would happen next week. And what this law would do is it would prohibit retailers from selling lighters that are designed to look like pistols, rifles, and other kinds of guns. This idea grew out of an incident last summer when the county's violence prevention director, Myesha Watkins, spotted, you know, realistic kind of gun -shaped lighters for sale in a university heights store. That made her think of Tamir Rice and that tragedy back in 2014. And that's kind of what sparked Hauser to act here. He went back to the same store, asked the owner to stop selling these things, and he spent some of his own cash to buy out the remaining inventory. But he wants to take this idea countywide. And under this proposal, stores could face fines up to $500 for a first violation and up to $1,000 for repeat offenses. Tamir Rice's mother, Samaria Rice, has endorsed this legislation and she hopes it helps prevent other families from going through the same kind of tragedy. Okay. Couple things. This is a good law. Stops toys from looking like guns is a good idea. But let's face it, Tamir Rice wasn't killed for that. He was killed because two cops were in the wrong, that they didn't give him a single chance to live. They pulled up and killed him. I don't even think they saw a gun. I think Tamir was reaching for the pellet gun he had when he got killed. So I don't want it to sound like, oh, if Tamir had not had that pellet gun, he'd be alive today. He'd be alive today if we had professional police responding to that crime, and we did not. The second thing is he didn't have a lighter shape like a gun. He had a pellet gun, and pellet guns look like guns. So when Hauser says nobody should have to go through what Tamir did, it's not really apples to apples. So it's a good idea. Let's not have things that look like guns that kids have, but let's not mistakenly say this is what happened to Tamir Rice, because it's not. Here is just zooming out and talking about. I mean, clearly that's the intention here. Kids holding gun-like things is probably just a scary situation in general connection to Demir Rice or otherwise, right? Um this is an interesting oh go ahead. But don't forget the video. I mean the car races up, the officer jumps out and kills Tamiris. There was no judgment. There was no thought . They jud they they got a report that a guy with the gun was was waving a gun around and with no investigation they raced up and killed that kid. Um and I I don't no amount of laws about things look like guns is going to stop poor policing from having bad effects. This was two police officers that should not have been in the job.. Yeah It's a horrible incident. It never should have happened. And this can't change that for sure. But it's worth noting, you know, the support that this legislation has gotten. I I was interested to see that prominent civil rights attorney Ben Crump has signed on to endorse this law. And I was also interested to see that a former White House gun for violent violence prevention official, Craig Jackson had also signed on to the law. It's a good law. I'm glad Michael Hauser is doing this. It will have a good effect if they pass it and enforce it. It's a good idea. It's a great idea not to have things that look like real guns in the hands of children when police are coming around. You're listening to today in Ohio. John Carroll University has its first woman president. Why does her recent record at the school make her seem like an ideal candidate in the increasingly competitive area of finding enough students to keep a university healthy? Laura. This is Carolyn Noel Sorg. She's the first woman president, the third layperson to lead the private Jesuit institution in its 139-year history. And she was recently, most recently, the university vice president for enrollment in marketing. And she did that for three years . She saw a 30% increase in new first year students since 2023. So we're talking about not even three years there, and 30% higher the incoming class in the fall is expected to surpass 700 students. That's a level the sit the university hasn't seen since before COVID. So that's huge. And she's going to make enrollment growth and academic innovation a priority in her term. I gotta say, she is a Northeast Ohio native and she's from Independence who graduated from Bolden Wallace. She's done a Masters of Arts at Columbia Teachers College in New York, a Master of Fine Arts at Miami, and she's worked at Ursulin, the College Board, BW, Barnard. I mean, she seems like the loc exactly who you want to keep in Northeast Ohio, right? A local , outstanding, successful story. Yeah, but somebody who can increase the student body like that in the current environment is amazing. Now, maybe, maybe she's benefiting from Jerry Sereno's bill that has made the public universities places that smart people don't want to go to because he's turned them into right wing agenda centers. I just whatever she did, she's got some magic going because colleges would love to be able to do what she's done. Absolutely. And I think those kind of mid tier private institutions are at even more of a disadvantage because there's so many of them, right? How do you differentiate BW from John Carroll, from Ohio Northern, from Ohio Wesley and from Ashland to from Worcester? I I can't tell you what is good at each one of them. Obviously John Carroll has the Catholic connection and I think a lot of people, especially if they go through all through col Catholic schools K to twelve, want a Catholic education. It is a beautiful campus in university heig hts and it's it's real tight nestled in there, but it it is gorgeous. And I know some John Carroll graduates as a grown up who are incredibly successful. So it does turn out great students and they had a wonderful time there. It it's definitely something that's going to be on the list when my kids look at schools. You know what the secret is? The trader Joe's they're opening right outside of kids . You're listening to today in Ohio. Did Northeast Ohio have yet another meteor light up the sky this week? Lisa. Yeah, there's been a lot of sightings in this area lately. So there was a meteor fireball that was spotted Monday night over northeast Ohio , but it could be seen across the Great Lakes region in the Midwest. It lit up the sky about 1042 PM, and we got reports from people who saw it in Elyria, Lorraine, Bay Village, Lakewood, Parma, Cleveland Heights, Wycliffe, and Painesville. They everyone said it was kind of a bright blue-green color, and it appeared to break apart into little fireballs and lasted several seconds. Now a fireball is uh basically a very, very bright meteor. And back in March, we had an asteroid that exploded over northeast Ohio, causing a sonic boom. It was like international news. Meteorites were later found in Med ina County from this. And then uh less than a week later from that, there was a fireball spotted over um southern Wisconsin. It was visible from Ohio and Michigan. What is suddenly going on where all of these very bright bright meteors are showing up around the United States? Is it end of days? I don't know. Is the big one coming? You know, the big asteroid that's gonna send us back to the dinosaurs. I don't know, but it's kind of cool. And of course, you know, the only way you can really catch us is if you happen to be looking at the sky at that particular moment, or you catch it on a ring cameras. So yeah, the people who saw it, I I envy them. I wish I could see something like that. Courtney. I've got to say our our reporter Ryan Kohick who covered that story was walking out of the gym and saw it live when it happened. He was You're listening to today in Ohio. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and by extension Donald Trump have rapidly done damage to what had long been national safeguards against the spread of di disease through their attacks on vaccines. Courtney, how does a national nonprofit founded in Cleveland aim to reverse that damage? This nonprofit is using one of the the the best tools out there in their view, and that's grandparents' love for their grandchildren. This nonprofit, like you said, Chris, it's expanded nationwide at this point. It's called Grparandents for Vaccines. And it was founded by a retired pediatrician, Dr. Arthur Arthur Levin, from his Shaker Heights home last fall. The idea here isn't to argue with skeptics point by point, but to have grandparents share memories of diseases like polio, measles, meningitis, and what their communities feared before immunizations, you know, changed our our daily lives. Laven says younger people often don't, you know, get what the world looked like back then when those diseases were common or what could really happen if they return. So this group has tapped now about 50 ,40 volunteers. It hopefully, you know, it aims to reach as many of the nation's 67 million grandparents as possible. But these folks have recorded nearly 60 videos so far, just sharing personal stories, memories of churches and school gyms being turned into temporary vaccine clinics and the ill effects of polio with when their relatives got it, just laying out for kids what the world used to be like. What's amazing is that is we have an element of our society that just goes against science. It's it's just so middle ages. It's the same people that believe there were witches and and yet probably were the ones behind human sacrifice to appease the gods in prehistory, the science is so clear on vaccines. And we made such strides as a species to beat back these horrible diseases. And yet this element, this conspiracy-minded element is reversing the process. And of course, we have a president and a health director that are as loony as tunes to lead that charge. You're spot on. I mean, not nearly as many people are getting the COVID vaccine now as just a couple years ago. We've watched vaccine rates continue to erode over the last half decade. And this is a this is an emotional plea, not a technical one to folks who have been caught up in vacc ine skepticism. Your grandparents love you. They want you to be okay. Do this and take care of yourself is the message. It's just it's frightening how people rebel against science that they just can't understand Well we're still seeing that decline that we've been watching all year long. And that was in April. That's the latest passenger numbers we have. It was below last year's pace. Through April, it was about one percent down from the same month a year earlier. We're talking about three point oh four million passengers in twenty twenty six. Again, about one percent down compared to that same period. Things are looking up. We're adding a bunch of flights. They're anticipating a busy summer of air travel in Cleveland. So routes are new service to Montreal, which I think is thrilling, New York City and Los Angeles, and then there's a low-cost carrier of VLO Airlines launching routes to New Haven and Concord, North Carolina. So those do sound like summer vacation places to head to. There is some concern that higher airfares could eventually dampen consumer demand, but right now we're not seeing it, even though airfare costs are up more than twenty-five percent compared to last year. Yeah, I can't help but think that the price of fuel will drive people away from expensive vacations like that. The the price of airline tickets have got to be high because of their fuel costs. And I just don't think people unless they really want to are going to I think that COVID and not being able to travel really did change the way that people look at vacations and they're not so much a luxury anymore as people think that they're a right and they're gonna take advantage of them. I you just never know when the world's gonna shut down. I think people made bucket lists. I think they are still acting on them. What's interesting is I think hot el prices are actually more concerning than airline tickets at this point. I think you look at those and you're like, this is like I I still log for the days when you could spend like a hundred and twenty bucks and stay in a Hampton in somewhere. But that I think those days are gone. Well and then you go to restaurants and they're expensive. Vacations are expensive. There's no no way to look at it otherwise. You're listening to today in Ohio. That does it for the Wednesday episode. Thanks, Courtney. Thanks, Lisa. Thanks, Laura. Thank you for being with us. We'll return Thursday to talk about the news . How many discounts does USA Auto Insurance offer? Too many to say here. Multi-vehicle discount, safe driver discount, uh, new vehicle discount, storage discount, legacy discount. How many discounts will you stack up? 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