CLEVELAND, Ohio - Cuyahoga County taxpayers are still paying for the construction of the Huntington Convention Center, which opened in 2013. Meanwhile the county took on debt for a $51 million transformation of the connected medical mart, expecting the county would recoup the money by hosting more and bigger conventions.
But thanks to Ohio laws that restrict the rights of LGBT and transgender people, as well as immigration agreements, one large convention is no longer considering Cleveland. We’re talking about how Ohio’s supermajority Republican legislature could hurt the city’s convention business on Today in Ohio.
Listen online here.
Editor Chris Quinn hosts our daily half-hour news podcast, with editorial board member Lisa Garvin, impact editor Leila Atassi 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 here: https://joinsubtext.com/chrisquinn.
Here’s what we’re asking about today:
After all the money taxpayers have spent to build a convention center in Cleveland, is the convention business in trouble because of fringe right-wing laws passed by the Legislature and signed by Gov. Mike DeWine?
Travel into the United States plummeted all summer, which is attributed to Donald Trump’s policies that are hostile to countries that once deemed us friends. Is Cleveland Hopkins International Airport traffic down for the same reasons, or is it something else. How many consecutive months have we seen with depressed traffic?
Sticking with the airport, Tuesday was supposed to be a deadline for the Browns to appeal a decision to block their planned Brook Park stadium because of safety concerns at Hopkins. Turns out that the Ohio Department of Transportation screwed up, so there is no deadline. So, where do things stand?
More on the Browns. Cleveland already has sued the Browns for violating Ohio’s Modell Law, which requires teams to be put up for sale before they can move. Now, who else is suing on the same grounds?
Ohio has all kinds of tight regulations on the sale of marijuana. But it has no such controls over hemp. What has that done to the market for intoxicating products in the state?
Reporter David Gambino wrote a fascinating piece on the increase of mental illness.
How is Donald Trump’s big beautiful bill making life harder for people seeking graduate degrees?
Cleveland Heights is not the only city seeking to recall its mayor. North Ridgeville, in part because of the first-rate reporting by Hannah Drown, also has an active recall effort. How come?
Who is the new head of Cleveland’s port, and what has he been doing lately?
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Read the automated transcript below. Because it’s a computer-generated transcript, it contains many errors and misspellings.
Chris Quinn (00:01.717)
Is Cleveland’s convention business in trouble because of the rightward swing of Ohio? It’s the first question we’ll answer on Today in Ohio, the news podcast discussion from cleveland.com and the Plane Dealer. I’m Chris Gwynne here with Lisa Garvin, Laura Johnston and Courtney Astoffi. Lisa, taxpayers spent a lot of money to build the convention center in Cleveland.
is the convention business in trouble though because of fringe right wing laws passed by the legislature and signed by governor mike the wine
Lisa (00:37.323)
Well, Huntington Convention Center officials say they don’t think so, at least not yet. The International Studies Association is so far the only group that says they are not coming to Cleveland because of laws recently passed by the state that inhibit LGBTQ and trans communities. And they said that’s going to keep them from booking conventions in Cleveland. But ASM Global, which manages Huntington Convention Center, their GM, Mike Campo says that
convention really would have been a home run with up to 6,500 visitors and 8,000 hotel stays, and it would boost the winter economy because it’s a February convention. He says, you know, but we’re losing an opportunity based on something that’s totally out of our control. He said that bookings for this year have been one of the best in history. We’ve hosted the National Association of Black Journalists, the National Urban League. There are 137 events at the convention center this year.
And that includes the Dam Safety Conference. And they actually said they chose Cleveland because of the renovated atrium at the convention center. And that’s over 2,200 hotel nights for that. But Campo does admit that projections for next year are soft, but that’s mostly due to the cyclical nature of conventions. And they project a rebound in 2027 and a peak in 2028. They already have 25 events scheduled for next year. So.
You know, and he he also points out that Cleveland has anti-discrimination laws for gender identity and sexual orientation. They’ve had those on the books since 2009 and the county expanded their protections for these groups countywide back in 2018.
Chris Quinn (02:13.981)
I just wonder though, if something like the Special Olympics for which there’s a very competitive process to get those and we were, have been in good stead because of the effectiveness of Cleveland and dealing with events like this, whether this becomes a factor in that decision. So if it’s a close decision between us and a Nashville or us and somebody else that they do look at the state and they say, you know, this is a state that’s hostile to some of the people that will be competing in these games.
let’s let’s not go there. We don’t have an answer like you said it doesn’t look like that’s happening yet but if you’ll remember what happened in North Carolina when they first outlawed gay marriage before the Supreme Court ruling they were losing convention business in a big way that that kind of paralyzed them and you we are passing ridiculous laws in this state now I mean the the college bill from Jerry Serino and
Lisa (02:53.161)
right.
Chris Quinn (03:12.039)
the things we’re doing with transgender are over the top. I Mike DeWine vetoed one and they overrode his veto. I just can’t help but think that the people making the decisions would not consider that.
Lisa (03:24.361)
Well, but why aren’t they saying no to Cincinnati? And as we know, as we talked about last week, they have a convention in Columbus next year. Obviously they can’t cancel. This was scheduled years in advance, but why are they picking on Cleveland? I mean, there are other cities that can host conventions in Ohio, but they’re not being mentioned.
Chris Quinn (03:41.789)
Yeah, that’s a good point. Well, it’s a good analysis to look at the state of the situation now, something that we’ll have to pay attention to as we move forward. You’re listening to Today in Ohio. Traveling to the United States plummeted all summer, which is attributed to Donald Trump’s policies that are hostile to countries that once deemed us friends. Is Cleveland Hopkins International Airport traffic down for the same reason, or is it something else?
Courtney, how many consecutive months have we seen with depressed traffic at our airport?
Courtney (04:15.8)
Yeah, Cleveland Hopkins has been losing passengers now for four months. In July, just under 975,000 travelers moved through Hopkins. That’s down 1.7 % compared to the same month last year. And this trend is in line with national trends as far, you know, as we can see here. The latest numbers from the U.S. Department of Transportation showing national domestic flight travel, those come from May.
passenger traffic nationally dropped about 2 % that month. And that was also the fourth consecutive month nationally for those numbers to decline. So we’ve just got a little bit more updated information in Cleveland, but it’s all headed downhill. Now there is some good news here and that this drop in July is smaller a little bit than what Hopkins saw earlier in the summer. So in May and June, traffic was down by about 4%. So more than double what we saw in July.
You know, we didn’t get a lot of commentary from the airport director on why Cleveland’s down. Again, we can look at what experts have said nationally here that economic uncertainties are driving this reduction in travel. But the good news from airport director, Bryant Francis, is that, you know, he talked about a new marketing campaign that the airport has pushed in recent months, and he believes that’s helping to soften that.
low and that reduction in drop-offs between May and June and July. He said this campaign is, you know, really pointing out to folks about all the different places you can go at Hopkins. And he thinks this has been helpful in a not so hot year.
Chris Quinn (05:57.351)
Yeah, a couple of things. One, does a marketing campaign like that really work? I I guess it’s what came first, right? The chicken or the egg. When I’m going to travel, I don’t make my decision because the airport said, Hey, how about traveling? You plan a vacation and then you look for your plane tickets. How much is a suggestion from the airport that, Hey, think about traveling.
going to change what people spend on travel. don’t know. They can claim success, but I don’t know if there’s any way to show that. do know, I read a national level story, I think in the past week, that showed visits from other countries to the United States are way down and the most is from Canada. Now, I think a lot of people from Canada that might come to Cleveland drive, so you wouldn’t see that necessarily in the airport. It will be interesting when
the numbers come out to see what our hotel occupancy has been this summer to see if that’s weighed down because we lost Canadian visitors.
Courtney (07:00.856)
I’m really curious about that international factor too here, Chris. You know, but what we do know is these national numbers that Susan Glaser kind of shared with us from the Department of Transportation, that’s looking at domestic passenger traffic. So if that’s down 2 % and then say international travelers are reducing their visits to the U.S. as well, that’s just piled on top of the decline domestically. Either way, I mean, it’s clear in Cleveland,
And across the country, this is not a good summer for travel businesses.
Chris Quinn (07:36.553)
All right, you’re listening to Today in Ohio. Sticking with the airport for a moment, Tuesday was supposed to be a deadline for the Cleveland Browns to appeal a decision to block their planned Brook Park Stadium because of safety concerns at Hopkins. Turns out the Ohio Department of Transportation screwed up. So there is no actual deadline. Laura, where do things stand now?
Laura (07:59.638)
Yeah, just kidding on that deadline. So they are negotiating and that’s what both sides are saying and they hope to reach an agreement. We don’t really know what that means, but of course they’re discussing this two hundred and twenty one foot tall stadium that’s within a mile and a half of Hopkins.
And ODOT had said there was a Tuesday deadline for the Browns to Workout Agreement. But then on Tuesday, they said the team did not receive a certified copy of that August 1st notice from ODOT. We don’t know if they failed to send the notice by certified mail, whether it was never delivered. But everyone is in a conversation towards resolution. That’s the goal. So I guess we probably won’t hear something until there is.
an agreement and I can’t see them moving it. They’d have to dig down another 80 feet in the ground-ish, I guess 58 feet in the ground to hit that height requirement. But obviously, we’ve talked about this before on this podcast. This is Cleveland saying we’re concerned about it because the FAA said, just put some red lights up and it’s not going to be a hazard. But it’s ODOT that surveyed more than 2,000 people with a say in the matter.
And Cleveland said, hey, this is a safety concern. So they’ve got to resolve that.
Chris Quinn (09:13.661)
Yeah, I don’t know how you negotiate away a safety concern. That’s the trouble here. And I can’t tell from our story. I don’t know if we know whether Cleveland is a part of these negotiations or it’s just the Haslam’s talking to ODOT, D and Jimmy Haslam are the team owners. But once ODOT comes out and says, we consider this planned stadium a danger to the air traveler. How do you negotiate that away? How do you come back later and say, you know what?
Laura (09:25.549)
Mm-hmm.
Chris Quinn (09:43.517)
We talked to the Browns, they’re gonna put some lights on it. Nevermind, it just won’t work. Either there’s a safety issue with the height of that building or there is not. And I don’t know how you work something like that out.
Laura (09:58.36)
I don’t know either. Leila made that point before on this podcast. Basically, like this is the Trump card. You play it. You can’t take it back. Like this is it. That’s your line in the sand and you’re not going to cross it. So we don’t know. Right. Like you said, if Cleveland’s involved here, I don’t know about the FAA because they obviously signed off. So I hope that it’s not just you’re right. Like, well, the Haslam’s gave some more money. So we’re going to let this happen.
Chris Quinn (10:22.249)
We are trying to figure out, and it’s harder than we thought it would be, how tall the smokestacks were at that auto plant. The auto plant wasn’t as tall as the stadium would be, but the smokestacks might have been. And so if they’re, and they were torn down 15, 20 years ago, if for a long time, something tall was in this vicinity next to the airport, you could argue then,
that it’s not the safety factor that ODOT said it was. And maybe that’s where it’s headed. just, once Cleveland says this is dangerous to our travelers and ODOT says we agree, you’ve got a hard line to come across. You can’t just say, oops, we got it wrong. It’ll be interesting to see. Very quiet. It’s amazing how this very public battle has gone so underground.
Laura (11:14.989)
Do you think there’s a way they could say, hey, planes just won’t fly that way? I mean, when the air show was in town, I noticed so many more flights over my house because they must have said, you know, this is space you’re not going to fly in. Or is it just too close that you couldn’t, you can’t say that area is off limits for flights entering and exiting? I don’t know.
Chris Quinn (11:31.517)
Well, I, can, how, can you force Cleveland’s airport to change air traffic patterns for a football stadium? Yeah. All right. You’re listening to today in Ohio. Let’s stick with the Browns. Cleveland already has sued the Browns for violating Ohio’s Meldell law, which requires teams to be put up for sale before they can move. Now who else is suing on the same grounds, Courtney?
Laura (11:39.841)
This is the Haslums, I don’t know!
Courtney (12:00.058)
Former mayor and state lawmaker Dennis Kucinich has entered the chat. This is the man who wrote the Modell law. And right now the city’s trying to enforce the Modell law against the Browns in court. And the Browns have another case where they’re trying to challenge the constitutionality of the Modell law. Now, Dennis Kucinich is coming in. You know, there’s a bunch of court battles going on and he’s filed his own lawsuit now.
He is taking aim at the city. He’s taking aim at the Browns. This is a massive 650 page filing and I’m really curious to see if it has legs and if it goes anywhere. So what Kucinich is asking of the court is he wants, you know, he wants, excuse me, he wants to force the Haslams to put the team up for sale. He’s really looking for the judge to enforce his version of the Modell law.
he asked the judge in his suit to open that six month for sale window, either right now or after the team’s lease with the city ends in February, 2029. And Kucinich also, you know, kindly offered to be the guy orchestrating that for sale process by taking in offers and working with potential folks in groups who want to buy the team. Another piece of Kucinich’s suit,
Is him seeking a judge’s order to stop the city from moving forward with lakefront plans that don’t include the stadium there. We know the city’s been figuring out what to do now that there’s this possibility of the Browns not playing there. It’s all still up in the air, of course, but Kucinich wants the city to stop that lakefront work until we get an answer on what’s going on with the Browns.
Chris Quinn (13:48.817)
I suspect both the city and the brands will immediately challenge whether he even has standing to file this suit. I’m not sure what his standing would be. How is he a party? the second thing is that the Modell laws he wrote, it has changed dramatically since he wrote it. Originally it said if it leaves the city, it has to be put up for sale. But the legislature just changed that this summer to if they leave the state, they’re not leaving the state. It would seem to negate any ability to sue.
under the Modell law. It’s bizarre both the city of Kucinich are trying to sue under an obsolete piece of legislation. I’m not sure what he’s doing here. The city is pursuing this case. They were in court a week and a half ago really hammering down saying we want the standards of the original Modell law applied here, which is bizarre, but that’s what they’re doing. So the city is doing what Kucinich wants. I’m not sure.
how he can make the argument. And then how does he have any standing whatsoever to stop late-current planning in Cleveland by elected officials? That’s their job.
Courtney (14:59.362)
Yeah, there’s a lot of head scratching going on, at least on my end in reading through the details here. I’m really curious if any of this has legs or if it’ll just get tossed like you’re kind of pointing out, Chris. When Kucinich tried to intervene in the city’s lawsuit earlier this summer in their separate case, it doesn’t seem like the judge gave much weight to his arguments back then. At least it wasn’t mentioned in court. But this new move where he’s trying to intervene himself
Well, what’s striking me about it is kind of the smack talk in the city. On the city, he’s included in this lawsuit. You know, he talked about how Cleveland taxpayers have paid nearly $600 million for the stadium and related needs over the life of, you know, the stadium so far. And interestingly, Kucinich wrote that city attorneys only paid, quote, lip service to his Modell law in its lawsuit against the Browns.
I just don’t understand the logic on taking aim at the city here.
Chris Quinn (15:59.325)
Well, let’s remember though, he did run for mayor against Justin Bibb, got his clock cleaned in the primary, didn’t emerge from the primary even to face the general election. So maybe there’s a grudge here going against the young mayor who beat him. You’re listening to Today in Ohio. Ohio has all kinds of tight regulations on the sale of marijuana, but it has no such controls over hemp. Lisa, what is that?
done to the market for intoxicating products in the state.
Lisa (16:30.751)
Well, it’s the wild wild west out there for intoxicating hemp products because they’re really not regulated. This kind of traces back to the 2018 farm bill, which removed hemp and seeds from the DEA controlled substances list. They did that to promote the industrial hemp industry, textiles, rope and so forth. But that created a regulation gap that’s now been exploited by producers and sellers. They can change the chemical makeup of hemp.
to make it Delta-8 or Delta-9 THC that has intoxicating properties. And that’s okay, as long as it’s below 0.3%. That makes it legal to sell in gas stations, smoke shops, and anywhere else. So Ice Miller LLP attorney, Greg May, they work with the marijuana industry. He says that we don’t have a hemp cultivation problem in Ohio. What hemp we’re getting is coming from out of state and from out of the country.
There is a bill in the Ohio Senate, Senate Bill 86. It was passed in the Senate unanimously back in April and they expect to take it up very quickly when they start again this fall. This would restrict intoxicating hemp sales to dispensaries only and they can only be sold to people 21 years of age and older. THC beverages are kind of a different animal. There are proposals to limit the THC levels in beverages to five milligrams per 12 ounce can.
or 20 milligrams per package, and then put it in a cooler separate from other drinks. They are mostly distributed through beer and wine distributors, so there’s a little bit more consistency there, and beverages are not found in smoke shops.
Chris Quinn (18:10.281)
Yeah, I would expect that jobs. Ohio would fight to preserve the sales of those products in liquor and beer stores so that they can get some of that. They’re funded by liquor sales. And if liquor sales are going down, as we’ve shown they are, and people are moving to liquid THC products, my bet is jobs. Ohio went in on that so that this won’t just be available in a dispensary. I’m just surprised in the end that.
the state regulations are so riddled with holes. would seem like you could easily regulate anything with THC or THC derivatives and they have with marijuana. The rules could not be tighter than they are. But then you got this, like you said, this Wild West. If you can get anything you want, really, and there’s nobody regulating it. Mike DeWine wants to, but for some reason we haven’t moved in that direction.
Lisa (19:07.871)
Well, in hemp, know, the hemp industry, know, they did, you know, hemp is great for, you know, making clothes, making rope, you know, sales for ships, all kinds of things. But then the chemists got involved and said, we can juice this a little bit and make people get high, even though, know, hemp doesn’t have those properties unless you mess with it.
Chris Quinn (19:19.475)
Alright.
Chris Quinn (19:27.337)
Fascinating how it’s developed. You’re listening to Today in Ohio. Reporter David Gambino wrote an interesting piece on the increase of mental illness in criminal cases in Cuyahoga County. Laura, what is the future?
Laura (19:42.252)
Well, it’s kind of a question, Mark, because mental health cases are growing so much and they’re becoming such a problem. There’s not a real answer to this. David’s story is great, but I don’t come away feeling optimistic. There are specialty courts that are aimed at helping those with mental health issues. They’ve seen a jump in cases. They don’t have cases for homicides. Murder is not involved in that.
Last year, in four state prisoners suffered from a form of mental illness. One in four. That is massive. Cost to care for them reached $72 million, according to a state report. And David talks about very specific cases where people were kind of at their wits end, that they knew there was something wrong. They didn’t really know what to do with the person. And this one case, Robert Guglia, a 34-year-old, ended up killing his own dad.
after he was brought home from a hospital. we know about the case of the three-year-old killed in the Giant Eagle parking lot. We know about some of the cases about people who have killed police officers. And I don’t know how this gets better because obviously people need treated. The one good thing is the new comprehensive mental health facility being built at the old St. Vincent Medical Center near downtown. So that’s going to see a lot more.
immediate use in emergencies. I don’t know about the long-term treatment and punishment for these crimes.
Chris Quinn (21:15.687)
I don’t think people realize that you can be forcibly taken to a hospital for mental health observation and, and the police can take your gun away when they do that. But the minute you’re let out, you can go to the police station and they have to give you your gun back because Ohio forces that there’s no red flag law. There’s nothing that says they can’t get their gun back once they’re released. That is a frightening situation. We have.
plenty of signs of when people are becoming a danger that lead anecdote of David’s story the surviving mom and spouse talked about it that this was getting worse and worse they could not get help and then her son beats her husband to death with a baseball bat so she’s lost her son she’s lost her husband because there weren’t resources to stop this but there were signs there’s often these signs and as a society
Laura (21:54.221)
Mm-hmm.
Laura (22:11.159)
Mm-hmm.
Chris Quinn (22:14.833)
We’re not doing what it takes to stop it from developing into the tragedy. It’s an enlightening story, but it’s frustrating because it gets worse and worse. The gun lobby has forced guns into everybody’s hands. And so the mentally ill regularly get them. The guy that ambushed the Lorraine officer and killed the Lorraine officer clearly has some, mental issues yet he had plenty of guns that when do we finally
Laura (22:37.377)
Mm-hmm.
Chris Quinn (22:44.819)
do the red flag law and say, okay, people with a history of mental illness, we need to have some rules about whether they can get firearms or not.
Laura (22:53.279)
I absolutely agree with you because you can believe in the Second Amendment and also believe in sensible gun control because nobody wants people to die senselessly. I believe you can have a nuanced view of this. But I’ve gotten emails from listeners or readers who just say they should just be locked up forever. You can’t lock someone up forever with a mental health issue if they haven’t done anything wrong. That’s not the way that people should spend their lives.
Lisa (23:11.265)
Thanks for watching.
Laura (23:22.317)
You want them to live in society. They just need help. They need treatment. And we know that mental health concerns have been growing exponentially since the pandemic anyway. The mental health court that we’re talking about here handled 526 cases this last year in 2024 compared to 356 in 2023. That’s a 47 % increase in one year. And they’re outpacing that today.
Clearly, this is a big problem that we need to address.
Chris Quinn (23:56.381)
You’re listening to Today in Ohio. Lisa, how is Donald Trump’s big, beautiful bill making life harder for people seeking graduate degrees?
Lisa (24:04.866)
As part of that bill, the direct plus loan program for graduate students will be eliminated next year. Its replacement has a cap per year of $20,500 and a $100,000 lifetime limit. And as grad students will tell you, that’s probably not enough. So students are saying that they may have to resort to private loans that have higher interest rates and fewer protections if they can’t get a scholarship.
So we talked to Ohio State University freshman, Fuvia Ahmed, who is considering a medical career. So going to medical school after college and said, I don’t know where I’m going to get the funds for med school. It’s pretty scary. And they also have other concerns about one big, beautiful bill and also Ohio Senate Bill 1.
Chris Quinn (24:53.107)
Yeah, the the idea of just making it more expensive and building up more debt. It’s the polar opposite of what Joe Biden was trying to do, which was to wipe out student debt. I don’t I don’t see how it helps us as a country to make it harder for people to get an education. You are listening to Today in Ohio. Cleveland Heights is not the only city seeking to recall its mayor, North Ridgeville, in part because of first rate reporting by our very own Hannah Drown.
Also has an active recall effort. Courtney, how come?
Courtney (25:25.838)
Yeah, this group of North Bridgeville folks want to recall Mayor Kevin Corcoran because they say he’s allowed rapid residential growth to outpace city infrastructure in a host of problematic ways. They think he’s ignoring the community needs here. So these organizers have three months together, 5,400 signatures roughly to get this recall on the ballot. Two weeks in, they say they already have a thousand signatures in hand. So we’ll see where this ends up, but.
One of the big drivers around this are our complaints about home builders and other infrastructure growth issues. Basically, we heard from Bill Lawrence, one of the recall organizers. He said he’s faced problem after problem since moving into his newly built home. One of just like tons of new homes that have been built out there in recent years as the city’s population has grown.
Since 2000, Northridge Hill’s population has surged about 68%. It’s up to nearly 38,000 people as of last year. This recall group points to 11 and 12 minute response time. Response times for emergency calls to firefighters on the city’s west side. They point to schools that are bursting at the seams. The high school is operating at nearly 150 % capacity. But on that home builder issue, on all these residences springing up,
Lawrence talked about how floodwater just keeps pouring into his basement every time it rains. He blames construction errors, faulty city inspections, and he really blames, as he describes a mayor that’s unwilling to hold these builders accountable. He said when he went to the city for help, he was stonewalled. And he said it felt like the mayor was siding with the builders instead of residents.
Chris Quinn (27:14.727)
When Hannah did her original stories about the rapid growth rate out there, the response by the current mayor was, all that growth happened before me. Since I’ve been mayor, it’s been more tempered, which was an interesting response because people were looking to him to address the ramifications of that growth. And he seemed like he was deflecting it. That seems like that’s coming home to roost. Now people want.
him to deal with this they want to have a fire station on the other side of town so that there’s a faster response time the idea that he’s not responding on the homeowner construction issues that’s interesting but that really does come down to a contract between the people who have the house built and the company that builds it the city does inspections on a number of areas but i don’t know that any homeowner can show
that the city ignored a problem. This might be that the builders didn’t build in the proper drainage or something. I’d like to see the concrete effort. Seems like a lot of frustration by a lot of people and they’re aiming at the mayor as the scapegoat for it.
Lisa (28:29.736)
I would agree. I would agree with that. It sounds kind of nimbish to me.
Courtney (28:29.743)
Right.
Chris Quinn (28:34.664)
Yeah.
Courtney (28:35.32)
Yeah. And you wonder, like you said, Chris, how much of this is the city’s fault? I mean, I get that they probably want the mayor to be more proactive than they think he has been, but what does that look like? Passing a bunch of intense regulations and laws to prohibit bill. I just don’t know what that solution may look like.
Chris Quinn (28:56.297)
Well, they did put up a solution. I mean, when Hannah did her story, it showed where the budget was and that did where their money was. And they came out saying, OK, let’s raise the income tax. But for many residents, it’ll actually go down because we’ll give you credit if you work elsewhere. It did seem to me like they were reacting and trying to get ahead of some of their woes. But I guess it’s just too little, too late. And he’s the figurehead. He’s the mayor.
And so he’s the target. It’s fascinating situation. We don’t have many areas with rapid growth in Northeast Ohio. We’ve been losing population. So it’s kind of fun to watch this develop in a town that is growing rapidly. You’re listening to Today in Ohio. We’ll leave it there. Thanks, Lisa. Thanks, Laura. Thanks, Courtney. Thank you for listening. We will return Thursday to talk about the news.
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