CLEVELAND, Ohio - The Cavs and the Guardians want another $150 million in tax money to keep up Rocket Arena and Progressive Field -- but Gateway is broke.
We’re aghast, and talking about why the teams won’t consider a new Gateway tax district, 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:
How much are the billionaire owners of the Cavs and the Guardians saying they expect taxpayers to cough up for updates and repairs to the baseball field and basketball arena in coming years?
What could the police departments that keep hiring Timothy Loehmann, the officer who killed Tamir Rice, thinking? This guy is a walking, talking liability. Which departments are the latest to give this guy a gun and a badge again?
I suspect I’ll be the outlier here in thinking this is idiotic, but what is the plan for the grain silos in the Flats, and how is Ohio helping pay for it?
Separately, a bona fide Cleveland institution won a big historic tax credit in the same round. Which one. How much. Where does that project stand?
The City of Cleveland claims it has finally improved the notoriously inefficient process for getting building permits. Is this real?
Yesterday we talked about local research that could prevent many Alzheimer’s cases. Today, we’re talking about a virulent form of breast cancer. What’s the research, and how many might it help?
If you call the Akron police department’s non-emergency number, who do you end up talking to?
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Chris Quinn (00:01.044)
Nothing inflames anger in these parts like telling people the team owners need money for their stadiums from the public. It’s a story we’re talking about on Today in Ohio, the news podcast discussion from Cleveland.com and the Plain Dealer. I’m Chris Quinn here with Laura Johnston, Lisa Garvin and Leila Tasi. And Leila, how much are the billionaire owners of the Cavs and the Guardians saying they expect taxpayers to cough up?
for updates and repairs to the places where they play, even though they refuse to create the district Justin Bibb wants to get started to generate money for this.
Leila (00:41.429)
Ah, Chris, I’m so angry about this story, especially in the moment we’re in right after the Browns deal has finally landed. So the latest assessments say at least 150 million is needed in the near term just to keep Progressive Field and Rocket Arena in good shape. About 69 million for the ballpark by 2028 and 82 million for the arena by 2029. That’s just the next few years. But zoom out over the rest of the leases and
The number gets a lot bigger. The total projected repair and replacement needs climb to another 261 million, which works out to roughly 17 million per team per year through the mid 2030s. And the publicly funded landlord Gateway is legally responsible for paying those capital repair bills. And Gateway has no money. Its old revenue sources have dried up. The city and the county already had to step in with a $40 million bailout. And officials are saying that
well is tapped out. So right now there’s no dedicated funding plan, no new tax in place, no special district approved. There’s just this growing list of repairs that everyone agrees will eventually have to be done. But the city wants the teams to help generate revenue through things like parking or ticket related fees. The county floated a syntax increase and then backed off of that. And in the meantime, the teams are affronting some costs with the expectation that they’ll be reimbursed later.
So, you know, the bottom line is the Cavs and the Guardians say the buildings need the work, the bills are coming, and unless something changes, taxpayers are still the ones staring down the tab, even though no one can yet say exactly how it will be paid.
Chris Quinn (02:21.912)
Look, the county and city, we know, have no money. They’re bums, these guys running these teams, because Justin Bibb came up with a perfectly reasonable way to generate this money. Create a district around the stadiums, and then the revenue generated from people coming into town would go into fund and it would pay for a lot of this stuff. And they refuse because it would mean they have to pay into the fund and they don’t want to do that. They just want to soak the taxpayers.
over and over and over for Taj Mahal treatment and the money that has been spent to build these first rate experiences for the well-heeled, the highest level of ticket sale in these places. It’s ridiculous and the taxpayers keep having to pay into it. I can’t believe the audacity because they’re refusing to do the simple act of helping Justin Bibb generate the money because it would hurt their bottom line bums.
Leila (03:20.437)
Yeah.
Chris Quinn (03:21.292)
Bums, Bums.
Leila (03:23.135)
Justin Bibb is absolutely right to draw a line here saying no more bailouts unless we talk about a special financing district. That is just basic fairness. If the Cavs and the Guardians really believe that their arenas are premier community assets, then the people who actually use them, the fans buying the tickets and parking the cars and buying all the $15 beers, should help pay for the upkeep because general taxpayers should not be the default ATM.
I’m so sick of this, especially when the budgets are tight. mean, look around. People can’t buy groceries and healthcare, and the county is cutting back on basic social services. So how dare you? How dare you? It’s so offensive.
Chris Quinn (03:54.593)
No, the-
Chris Quinn (04:00.898)
The se-
Chris Quinn (04:08.576)
Right. The single mom living in Hough trying to struggle with a property tax bill that keeps going up and who never ever steps foot in a stadium should not have to keep paying for this. It’s just not right. The people who use the stadium should pay for the stadiums. And it’s such a reasonable thing that Justin Biv has put on the table. It’s so reasonable that I have a hard time looking in the face of Dolan and Gilbert.
Leila (04:20.383)
No.
Chris Quinn (04:36.588)
How do you not do it? How do you say no? It’s just you reek of greed by saying no. And you’re putting the onus on that single mom in Hough. What, man, what the heck is going on with these team owners? Shame, shame, shame, shame, shame. They need to get to the table, create this district. You’re listening to Today in Ohio. What could the police departments to keep hiring Timothy Lohman, the officer who killed Tamir Rice, be thinking?
Leila (04:41.844)
Yes.
Lisa Garvin (05:03.928)
you
Chris Quinn (05:06.166)
This guy is a walking talking liability. Lisa, which departments are the latest in what is becoming a long line of departments to give this guy a gun and a badge again?
Lisa Garvin (05:12.184)
Thank
Lisa Garvin (05:16.728)
Yeah, so Timothy Lohman, the former CPD officer who shot and killed 12 year old Tamir Rice in 2014, was hired by not one, but two law enforcement agencies in West Virginia. One of them is the Gilmer County Sheriff’s Office. He was hired there in August and the other is the Snowshoe Resort Community District and he was hired there in June. And you know, after he was fired by the Cleveland Police Department in 2017, he was hired by three other police departments since then.
one in 2018, one in 2022, and one last year, but he had to resign after public outcry when the news spread about his hirings. Samaria Rice, is Tamir’s mom, her attorney Sabod Chandra says, hiring lowman puts people at risk. He says those who are heartless enough to hire him should lose their jobs and they betrayed the public trust.
This is a report from Dragline, which is a nonprofit news organization associated with the ACLU. And in that article, Rice said that he lied on his police department application. He was crying on the gun range and he was careless with his weapon. And she says that proves that Lohman is unfit to be a police officer. And he, she really hopes that people will rise up and protest these latest appointments.
Chris Quinn (06:32.527)
It was clear once we looked into his background, the Cleveland police should never have hired him because of his meltdown on the firing range in tears. But now there’s so much wrong with this because the people who he’s policing, if they recognize him, are going to know he’s a wild card and they might just mess with him because of it creating a possibility for conflict. If he makes a single mistake, there’s going to be lawsuits. And the people going and say,
Lisa Garvin (06:56.855)
Mm-hmm.
Chris Quinn (06:59.928)
You owe me money. You knew he was dangerous. You knew he shouldn’t be a police officer. You hired him anyway. Give me money. And they’ll pay. I mean, it’s just, and because he’s such a wild card, there is a danger he’ll kill somebody else. This guy cannot be trusted as a police officer. And we know that. On the other side, what is he thinking? He keeps bringing national humiliation to himself by getting these jobs.
and then having to quit. Why doesn’t he go to welding school and go disappear like he should for what he did with Tamir Rice? It’s unbelievable we’re talking about this again.
Lisa Garvin (07:38.68)
Well, it makes me wonder what he’s disclosing. I mean, the reason he was fired by Cleveland police was not because of Rice killings. It was because he didn’t disclose his firing by the Independence Police Department after being found by them to be unfit to serve. So I’m wondering if Lohman is not disclosing these things again.
Chris Quinn (07:57.73)
But all you have to do is search his name in any search engine and you’ll get 5,000 stories about it. When we learned of this two nights ago, I was just stunned. I cannot believe five different police departments think it’s okay to bring this guy on and give him a badge and a gun. And whoever is paying the bills in those municipalities, they’re gonna go up. They’ll beat lawsuits. They will pay big damages. That’s one of the chief reasons they shouldn’t. I think that’s why
Lisa Garvin (08:00.031)
I know.
Chris Quinn (08:25.846)
The other places that hired him ultimately got him out of there. But I just cannot for the life of me understand what these municipalities are thinking. You’re listening to Today in Ohio. I suspect I’m going to be the outlier here and thinking this is idiotic. But Laura, what is the plan for the grain silos in the flats? And how is Ohio helping pay for that?
Laura (08:47.692)
The idea is a hotel. So this 4.29 acres. It’s controlled by the Cleveland Metro Parks. It’s on the Columbus Peninsula in the flats. And it got $5 million in a tax credit by the state of Ohio on Wednesday. This is part of a $62 million packages they’re putting together to create this hotel and the old grain craft silos in the mill. It’s along the Cuyahoga River. And we’ve talked about this site before and what they plan to do with it. And apparently, this is the answer. They want to start.
construction in 2027. So when you did send this over, you’re like, bad idea. And the first thing that comes to everyone’s mind is Quaker, Square, and Akron. So I’m going to let you say why this is a bad idea, and then I’ll come back.
Chris Quinn (09:28.984)
Yeah, and then you can argue with it. Well, what’s funny is when you read about Quaker Square, it’s exactly the same thing. They talk about, how cool it would be to have curved hotel rooms and stay in this wonderful place that has this big history. And of course, it doesn’t exist anymore because it didn’t work out. It ended up being, I think, school housing for a while because the hotel wasn’t working out and it’s had several other things. And I think it’s empty right now. And I suspect that’s what will happen here. I just...
You got a riverfront land and I get, know you’re going to disagree with me and Lisa’s disagree with me in the past, but my feeling is we don’t need a grain silo. We don’t need that building. You got riverfront land. What magical thing could you do with it? I don’t see a grain silo as key to preserving our heritage. Go ahead. Disagree.
Laura (10:15.214)
Okay. Well, has anybody else in this podcast been to Quaker Square in Akron? Okay. So I used to go there regularly. I sang in the choir and we would have our Christmas concert there at the Tree Festival at Quaker Square. I loved it. It was actually when I shadowed a reporter at the Beacon Journal when I was 15, that’s where he took me to lunch. So I very fond memories of this place and it was a hotel for like 30 years. So I don’t think you can say it completely failed if it’s working for three decades. And then yes, Akron, you took it over.
Lisa Garvin (10:19.553)
No.
Leila (10:20.115)
No.
Laura (10:43.062)
and now it is being redeveloped into what? I’m not sure. But there are no hotels left in downtown Akron because there’s no need for a hotel in downtown Akron. Whereas you look at Cleveland and there are more hotels and they are mostly, I think, doing pretty well. I think, and I think I got to trust the Metro parks. Everything they do looks good. People want to go to it. So I don’t think this is a bad idea. Yes, it is riverfront land, but it’s kind of a piece.
that’s squeezed in there by the bridges and the rowing foundation. it’s not just like a big park area. This is kind of an industrial area. This would be a cool destination. And it could be mixed use in addition to hotel and give people a reason to go down there.
Chris Quinn (11:28.278)
Anybody else want to weigh in?
Lisa Garvin (11:29.196)
I, I, I mean, I, I, I salute the, you know, the, ambition, but if anyone, and I spend a lot of time on the Columbus peninsula, it’s very industrial down there. I can’t see people just walking around down there, you know, so.
Leila (11:35.782)
You
Laura (11:41.217)
Yes, it is.
Leila (11:41.586)
Yeah.
I wouldn’t go there to dump a body.
Lisa Garvin (11:47.442)
Hehehehehe
Chris Quinn (11:47.864)
All right. That’s the podcast quote where we post this story in line. That’s going to be the headline. I wouldn’t go there to dump a body, but it’ll be a hotel. I just, I don’t think this has the vision, but I get it. I get why people, they don’t want to let go of stuff that’s old. just wonder if you did a visioning exercise, what, that could be. get, I agree with you, Elise. It’s hard to get to. It’s not, this isn’t something that when you say downtown hotel,
Laura (11:51.84)
It’s really close to Merwin’s wharf.
Lisa Garvin (12:14.136)
Mm-hmm.
Chris Quinn (12:17.144)
this in downtown. But but if you used it as some kind of landing place for people who are doing river sports, could that be cool? I don’t I just don’t know. But when I saw that they’re turning it into a town, I don’t think it’s that’ll last I just will see time will tell. But I wasn’t crazy about this idea.
Laura (12:18.199)
No.
Lisa Garvin (12:26.186)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Laura (12:37.134)
I the riverfront park is there, Merwin’s Wharf is right there, and the foundry, so, but I agree, it’s not, it is gritty.
Lisa Garvin (12:44.564)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Chris Quinn (12:44.664)
I wouldn’t go there to dump a body. All right. You’re listening to Today in Ohio. Separately though, we do have a bona fide Cleveland institution winning a big historic tax credit in the same round. Which one? How much? Where does the project stand, Laura?
Laura (12:49.102)
Or Leila would go to dump a body.
Leila (12:51.466)
Ha
Laura (13:06.264)
So this is West Side Market. got the $5 million, which is the most that the state gave out for this. And this is 33 different projects. So this is good. It means the West Side Market Transformation Project has raised $56 million of the total goal of $70 million for its phases. And so this specific $5 million is going to go to the second stage of the project. They began this.
this year with the East Produce Arcade and the vendors are going to move out next month. And then they’re going to keep everybody in the space, but they’ll just do different parts as they go. So future phases are seating areas, restaurants, event spaces, food stalls, full service bars, and public dining options. So really, it’ll be more of a gathering place rather than a shopping grocery place.
Chris Quinn (13:58.528)
I’m so glad that it seems to have shaken off all that traditional thinking that it can’t be any of this stuff for years and years. You had people saying no it must be just the food market meat vegetables that’s it you shouldn’t have a place to sit down you shouldn’t have a restaurant we shouldn’t think of it as a gathering place it’s a food store and you know it became more bond because people weren’t doing it and it’s and in Cleveland people always fight for for traditions and.
Laura (14:06.178)
Mm-hmm.
Laura (14:27.15)
Mm-hmm.
Chris Quinn (14:27.828)
Everything is sacred, you can’t rethink anything, but the age keeps evolving and I’m tickled that all those years where people thought this, it’s gone and we’re moving into something. I hope it works, but at least we’re trying to do something different that brings life back to a place that lots of people treasure.
Laura (14:48.396)
Yeah, and they’ve gotten lots of help from the city, the county, the state, corporations, foundations, private donors. So I think the greater community is buying into this vision. And if you go to Toronto or Vancouver or places that they have these big public markets, they are a gem in the city. They are a tourist destination. So if you have a place to sit down, that’s going to be a lot more inviting for people to go there. And it’s a beautiful building and a landmark.
Really, it’s not that far from the silos, so maybe people will stay at that hotel.
Chris Quinn (15:20.644)
Not a chance credit credit Justin Bibb for the vision here because he replaced the mayor who just refused to do this kind of thing. And as soon as he got into office, he got this going. It’s vision. It’s it’s new thinking, which we really did need.
Lisa Garvin (15:21.72)
Hahaha
Laura (15:27.725)
Yeah.
Laura (15:36.258)
And they finally figured out the parking situation there too, so.
Lisa Garvin (15:36.418)
Does it?
Lisa Garvin (15:39.992)
Does anyone know though, if they’re going to be open seven days a week? Because that was kind of a pain in the butt where, know, if you went on Tuesday and Thursday, they were closed. And on Sundays, I believe too, you know, so I hope that they make it, you know, a seven day a week market.
Chris Quinn (15:48.77)
Yeah, good point.
Chris Quinn (15:54.704)
If it’s a gathering place, it might be attractive enough where it makes that make sense. But you’re right. That was another one of the awkward parts of this. It was only open on certain days. There was a lot of stupid stuff there that and I was an outsider. So when I first come to town, everybody talks about it and you look at it and think, OK, this doesn’t make any sense to me, especially because it wasn’t locally grown food. They were getting their vegetables at the same place the grocery stores did. Nothing about this made sense to me. And yet everybody was
pound the tables and pound their fists on the counter and say, is the way it must be. It’s good to see change coming. You’re listening to Today in Ohio. This sounds like change, but I question whether it’s real change, Layla. City of Cleveland claims it has finally improved the notoriously inefficient process for getting building permits. Is this real?
Leila (16:46.165)
Maybe, cautiously maybe. mean, City Hall says it has finally tackled what builders and small business owners have long called the crawl, which is that miserable ritual where you’d physically have to walk a permit from building and housing to zoning to fire to the health department. People didn’t trust that the system would be able to process their permits without getting them all gummed up for months. So they kind of became the system themselves.
walking their paperwork from office to office. So what’s changed is that the city just rolled out a new fully digital permitting platform that puts all 14 departments on one system. So you would upload your plans once every department sees the same documents. Reviewers can mark up plans directly in a shared digital plan room and everyone can now see exactly where a permit is sitting and how long it’s been there. City officials say that
kind of transparency is the real reform here. You can’t fix bottlenecks if you don’t know where they are. And now both the applicants and City Hall can see them in real time because there have been some horror stories around this. Sean McDonald documented one, one small business owner tried to open a candy shop and spent a full year waiting for an occupancy permit just to paint his space. And there were no clear answers on who was holding up the permit.
It only moved after he went viral on social media and tagged the mayor. so city council members say that they’ve been playing referee on cases just like that for years. Now the city says this won’t magically fix everything overnight. Officials are upfront that it’s iterative. That’s code for, you know, this is step one of a million steps they got to take to fix it. But they’ve spent tens of thousands of staff hours modernizing ancient software and untangling years of tech.
problems, and they insist that this is a real shift, not just a rebrand.
Chris Quinn (18:44.418)
When I asked our readers what we should focus on in 2026, this was one of the themes. Can you please dig into why this is problematic? And it’s something that’s been problematic for decades. The entire time I’ve been here, you talk to anybody in the real estate business and they say, you know, there’s no other city in America that works like this. It’s idiotic. We don’t welcome them. We ought to have a concierge to help people get it done because nobody wants to do work in Cleveland because it’s a nightmare.
I’m a little bit skeptical though, at the timing of this coming out right after we wrote about that and right after this candy shop went viral. If this were a real step forward, I’m a little bit surprised it didn’t come out during the mayoral election. Cause you would want to say we’re fixing it. I think the only way to figure it out is to walk through it with some developers and see how smooth it is. See what they think and see if there are hitches in it. Cause I.
have a high dose of skepticism here.
Leila (19:42.838)
Well, I have more faith in it because it didn’t come out during the mayoral election. I feel like, you know, it’s not tied to anything political at the moment, but I feel like we do need a reality check because the new system should be genuinely helpful for one thing, and that’s that you will finally know where your permit is gummed up. And that’s some progress, but transparency alone doesn’t equal efficiency. We have lived this with the city’s public records portal.
Chris Quinn (19:47.315)
Ha ha ha ha ha ha.
Leila (20:11.101)
It shows us exactly where our public records requests are stalled, but they’ll sit there for two years. And we’re still waiting for 18 months old records requests. So knowing you’re stuck in a log jam doesn’t magically clear the log jam. But I think there’s a second deeper issue too. And Sean McDonald has reported this repeatedly. The problem wasn’t just that people couldn’t see the process. It was that the process itself was bloated and redundant and filled with all these unnecessary
Chris Quinn (20:18.113)
Yeah.
Leila (20:40.243)
handoffs and duplicative reviews of the paperwork. If all this new system does is let us watch those same inefficient steps happen in real time, then congratulations, you’ve done nothing here. I think that visibility matters, but the real test is whether City Hall actually cuts steps and eliminates redundancies and shortens the timelines for people seeking these permits.
Chris Quinn (21:08.088)
Look, I have heard from inside City Hall, not from the PR people who put spin on everything, but from people that are in the trenches that the computer updates have been marvelous. That they’re not moving into the modern century, but they’re at least in the 20th century, the late 20th century. They’re using Microsoft Suite and things to communicate in ways they didn’t do before. So Bib has made a lot of progress because when he came in, Jackson had not.
updated any of that stuff. mean, it was as antiquated as could be. And if this is part of that, then maybe it’ll get there. I just I just want to see it because this has been one of the most notoriously bad parts of working with City Hall forever. mean, residents just trying to get a fence permit, how to beg their council people to help them get it through. You’re listening to Today in Ohio.
Yesterday we talked about local research that could prevent many Alzheimer’s cases. Today we’re talking about a virulent form of breast cancer. And as normal, Lisa Garvin is not a doctor, but she plays one on the podcast. What’s the research? How might it help?
Lisa Garvin (22:05.912)
Yeah, the Cleveland Clinic has developed a vaccine that’s showing some real promise in early studies to prevent what’s called triple negative breast cancer.
possibly the most aggressive and lethal form of breast cancer and it’s really hard to treat effectively. The principal investigator, Dr. Thomas Budd with the Clinics Cancer Institute says these phase one trials suggest that the vaccine is safe and well tolerated and it’s able to induce an immune response in 74 % of the patient study. Now the patient group is small, that’s typical in phase one trials because they’re just trying to figure out whether it’s safe and effective.
So the trial began in 2021. They had 35 patients in the study. They’re doing this in partnership with Anixa Biosciences Incorporated. So phase two of the trials will begin late next year and last about two to three years. There’s a much bigger number in phase two trials as it moves towards approval. And these trials will evaluate the vaccine’s efficacy.
Now triple negative breast cancer is only about 10 to 15 % of all breast cancer cases, but a really high mortality rate. It really affects black women. Black women as a whole are affected by aggressive breast cancers like triple negative and also inflammatory breast cancer. So triple negative sounds like a big thing. What they do when they’re trying to diagnose breast cancer, they take three tests. One for estrogen hormone receptor.
one for the progesterone hormone receptor, and one for the HER2 gene. If all three of those tests are negative, then you have triple negative breast cancer.
Chris Quinn (23:51.032)
Yeah, what I like about this is it feels like that forever we have not seen progress in fighting breast cancer. Women who get get detection early, they can get get it knocked down. But it’s a horrible process. And we’ve all known many people that have gone through it. If we can get a vaccine that prevents people from getting it to begin with, that that’s like a huge step. And we haven’t seen anything like that. And again, it’s local research that’s getting us there.
Lisa Garvin (24:19.606)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Well, I would argue, though, that breast cancer gets a lot of research and a lot of attention, and there have been a lot of advances in breast cancer treatment, but we’ve also been identifying new forms of breast cancer, like inflammatory and this triple negative. So, yeah.
Laura (24:35.576)
But it affects so many women. You know, I think that’s why it gets so much attention.
Chris Quinn (24:35.66)
It it.
Lisa Garvin (24:39.946)
Yeah, you know, lung cancer kills more women than breast cancer, just saying. Yeah.
Laura (24:44.238)
Well, because it kills them because there’s been more research on breast cancer and people are way more aware of it and doing their own checks and getting the mammograms.
Lisa Garvin (24:49.175)
Right.
Chris Quinn (24:54.294)
Yeah, just, it does feel like we haven’t made the progress to stop it. We see it all the time. And you’re right, Lisa. I mean, there’s other cancers that are terrible and cause death, but I’m just glad to see it. And it’s testament to the strength of our healthcare industry in Northeast Ohio that we keep being in the center of this research.
Lisa Garvin (25:18.178)
Well, I think the whole concept of immunotherapy as it applies to cancer treatment has opened a lot of doors like this one where you can actually go in and prevent it before it even happens.
Chris Quinn (25:30.262)
Okay, you’re listening to Today in Ohio. Layla, if you call the Akron Police Department’s non-emergency number, who do you talk to these days?
Leila (25:37.948)
Well, you’ll be talking to an AI named Ava. So if you call this non-emergency number now, you’ll be greeted by this virtual assistant powered by artificial intelligence. It’s Ava’s job to ask questions, gather details about what you’re calling for, and then pass that information along to officers. If it turns out that your call is an emergency or if Ava can’t handle your call, you get routed to a real human being. So
That’s an important distinction that 911 calls are still answered by people. This is only for non-emergency stuff. Akron police say that the goal is pretty straightforward. Free up human dispatchers so they can focus on true emergencies instead of tying them up with routine calls. Dispatchers will still review the information that Ava collects before officers respond. So it’s not like the AI is running the show unchecked. The system is already live though. A Cleveland.com reporter called this non-emergency line and immediately got Ava
Akron tested the technology over the summer and says it worked well enough that they’ve now fully rolled it out. The same system is also being used by the Summit Emergency Communication Center. The company that’s behind this tech claims that Ava can even follow up with callers to see if their issue was resolved, which frankly is more follow through than most humans can manage. So that’s a plus.
Chris Quinn (26:57.4)
You know, I get it if you have the wrong order delivered by target and you wanted to call and they don’t have a phone bank, you talk to AI. I’m not crazy about the idea of public safety. If I’m calling a police department, I have something I need to talk about, even if it’s not an emergency. And it just, I don’t know. Look, I’m a big believer in AI. We’re the vanguard newsroom in the country for using AI as a tool. It does a lot of things really well and it’s helpful.
Leila (27:05.493)
Mm-hmm.
Leila (27:09.887)
Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.
Chris Quinn (27:27.548)
I just don’t think I would go this route with it. It seems a little bit shaky to me and you can have some very bad outcomes. I mean, we all know we’ve been talking about Alexa because Alexa has moved into AI. It gets stuff wrong all the time.
Leila (27:35.657)
Yes.
Leila (27:42.026)
Yes, I agree. It feels like a very high risk application for AI. And policing is one of those areas where context and tone and human judgment really matter. someone reporting a noise complaint might be really scared. There might be something going on or a suspicious person call can quickly slide into bias. And then AI is only as good as the questions it asks and its follow up.
Chris Quinn (27:51.703)
Yeah.
Leila (28:10.515)
So while Ava might help clear the queue, the real test is whether this actually improves response times and trust in the system or whether residents start feeling like they’re just being filtered by a bot before they’re taken seriously. So, you know, we’ll see.
Chris Quinn (28:24.728)
We’ll see, we’ll see. It’s a little shaky. You’re listening to Today in Ohio. All right, Laura, people who fish in Lake Erie might have a lot to be excited about in the next few years. How come?
Laura (28:36.076)
because we had great hatches of both walleye and perch, which is pretty rare to get good hatches of both in the same year. Anglers have been very lucky as of late with walleye. Above average hatches have occurred eight of the past 11 years. But this year, we’re talking another good year. So trawling surveys, that’s how they decide how big the hatch was, found
128 young of year per hectacre. That’s about 2.5 acres. That’s the sixth largest hatch in 38 years, which I guess that’s how long they’ve been keeping track of them. For yellow perch, it’s slightly different, but seventh out of the last 38 years. So those are some really good numbers.
Chris Quinn (29:20.15)
Yeah, it was was surprisingly see because I wouldn’t say the lake is exactly healthy. We’ve had a lot of problems with algae and the temperature fluctuations, but whatever it is, it’s not affecting the fish breeding.
Laura (29:36.034)
The harmful algal bloom this year was not as bad as it could have been, and they are trending downwards a little bit. Although you can’t say it’s necessarily because of the wine’s H2 Ohio plan is working where it’s paying farmers to be better about how they put fertilizer on their crops. But it does seem that the anglers have been very, very lucky as of late and all of these hatches so they can start catching these in about three years. So then they’ll they’ll use this information to work with all of the
land masses on the lake to decide how much you can catch per day and create the limits. And that’ll depend where you are. mean, Ohio, Michigan, Canada, Pennsylvania, New York. And yeah, so, but there should be no slowing down of that industry and that tourism, which is a big deal for Ohio.
Lisa Garvin (30:25.813)
Can I do a shout out here? I’m not a fisherman. I fished a little bit when I lived on Galveston Island in Texas, but I read Darcy Egan’s fishing column every Friday. It’s really got fascinating information.
Laura (30:33.57)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Chris Quinn (30:37.9)
Yeah, he is. He’s a gem. All right. You’re listening to Today in Ohio. That’s it for the Thursday episode. Thanks, Laura. Thanks, Lisa. Thanks, Leila. Thank you for joining us. We’ll be back on Friday to wrap up a week of news.