Ohio House budget makes another devastating assault on public schools: Today in Ohio

CLEVELAND, Ohio - The Ohio House wants to take $4.2 billion from school districts, give it to homeowners and call it property tax relief.

We’re talking about another attack on public education 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.

You can now join the conversation. Call 833-648-6329 (833-OHTODAY) if you’d like to leave a message we can play on the podcast.

Here’s what we’re asking about today:

Because Ohio law locks in the amount of money that each school tax raises in a year, school districts have a balancing act. When they ask for a tax increase, they weight it to that it brings in more than they need in the early years, knowing that inflation will overtake the amounts in later years. They use the early overages to fill the gaps that come later. How is the Ohio House trying to stop that practice?

We know a lot of people have a strong dislike for the Haslams and, thus, oppose any deal involving public financing for a stadium. But the Haslams have put together a financing deal that, on the surface, looks a lot better for taxpayers than the recent deals of the Guardians and the Cavs. We went below the surface to check. What’s the verdict?

With Donald Trump making the preposterous argument that he should serve a third term in violation of the Constitution, we wondered what Ohio’s role was in limiting presidential terms to two. What did we find out?

We’ve raced in our newsroom to cover the many local and state ramifications of Donald Trump’s non-stop flow of executive orders. A reader asked if we could compile our reporting into one place. We did, and wow. How many ways has he affected life in Northeast Ohio?

Another impact that was felt locally was the wild swings in stock prices of companies headquartered here. Molly Walsh took a look. What did she see?

We thought Jimmy Dimora would be a completely free man when Joe Biden included him among hundreds of people whose sentences were wiped clear. Turns out, he’s still in the clutches of the feds, but to a much lesser degree. What’s the status?

We have an interesting conflict going on at Cleveland’s West Side Market, which took the unusual step of evicting two merchants while refusing to tell us why. One is going to battle to remain. What’s the story?

How do Ohio’s top schools rank in the latest lists for graduate schools?

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Read the automated transcript below. Because it’s a computer-generated transcript, it contains many errors and misspellings.

Chris Quinn (00:01.385)

It’s just keep on coming on the way budget cuts by government are affecting people in very deep ways. Layla Tassi has a big column about that today on cleveland.com and in the Plain Dealer and it’s involved in some of the stories we’ll be discussing. It’s Today in Ohio, the news podcast discussion from cleveland.com and the Plain Dealer. I’m Chris Quinn here with Layla and Lisa Garvin and Laura Johnston.

Laura, because Ohio law locks in the amount of money that each school tax raises in a year, school districts have a balancing act. When they ask for a tax increase, they weight it so that it brings in more money than they need in the early years, knowing that inflation will overtake the amounts in later years, they use the early overages to fill the gaps that come later. How is the Ohio house trying to stop that practice?

Laura (00:53.772)

because they want to take the money from school districts and give it back to property owners because of course they do. They hate public schools. This is the same legislature that’s giving a billion dollars in private school vouchers. So we’re talking about $4.2 billion here. Huge. And what I love, I guess, is not the right word about this idea, which was included in the House version of the budget and not that I saw anyone was talking about it beforehand, is that all the PR, all the spin that came out

from the Republican legislatures basically said, hey, we’re giving you the biggest tax break in history for property taxes. Like that sounds pretty great, right? But what they’re doing is they wanna take if the school district has more than 30 % overage in its budget for the year, like if it carries over more than 30 % of its budget, then they wanna take that money and give it back as a one-time property tax relief to the people in that district.

So if it’s carrying money and it has savings, basically, they wanted to give it back to the taxpayer one time in 2027. And what the school districts are saying is, hey, we budget for that. We are trying to make our money last as long as possible because obviously we know school districts are funded by property taxes. So when they run out of money, they have to ask taxpayers in their district for more property taxes. They don’t like doing that. The taxpayers don’t like doing that. So they’re trying to make it last. And this bill would

basically say, you can’t save your money.

Chris Quinn (02:24.653)

Well, it’s exactly that. It’s this is what they do reduces the number of times they have to come back and ask. If a school district asked us today for the amount of money they need for this school year, then the next year inflation would leave them broke. They wouldn’t have enough money because the costs keep going up, but those dollars cannot. So they have that balancing cycle where they ask for more than they need.

Laura (02:41.688)

Mm-hmm.

Chris Quinn (02:50.345)

and then use overages to carry it forward. They eventually get to a point where the overages are gone and they can’t afford it, and they go back to the districts. Ohio has built in a system where property tax increases cannot mainly go up with inflation. And what’s silly about this, other than the distress it’s gonna cause for school districts that suddenly have the rug pulled out from under the roof, they’ll just game the system again, because the way they’re gonna cut these taxes

Laura (03:07.298)

Mm-hmm.

Chris Quinn (03:19.037)

is to reduce your tax rate next year so that they get less money and they have to use their overages. And then as their needs come back, the rate goes back to what voters originally approved. Well, all the districts will do now is when they go for a tax increase, they’ll put in a higher tax rate than they need. They’ll know that the state will block that so that they get a certain amount of money. But as inflation creeps,

that tax rate will eventually get up to what voters approve. They’re just forcing the districts to play an entirely different game in the same theme and it’s stupid. You know what the best line in that story, I forget which legislator said it. They said, you know, we just had a huge study done on property tax relief and this was not one of the elements that was recommended. They had a huge study recommending all sorts of ways to give people relief and this is the way they do it by once again.

Laura (03:54.584)

Mm-hmm.

Laura (04:04.714)

Yes, yes.

Chris Quinn (04:17.079)

trying to cripple public schools because the Republicans in the legislature hate public schools.

Laura (04:23.586)

Yeah, it was Bride Rose Sweeney, a Democrat, who said that, who represents much of Northeast Ohio. So I completely agree with you here. It’s taking something that’s pretty straightforward in how they budget. And I think it’s just going to make school districts, because if they could spend all their money, like drunken sailors, which is, think, another Sweeney quote in this story, because if they don’t have the money, they can’t give it back. Or they could just start putting it in other accounts, because we’re only talking about the general fund here.

But Westlake City Schools has not had a levy on the ballot since 2006. That is like 20 years, obviously. And they’re saying, hey, we do this on purpose so that we can make this last. And you’re going to make us go back to voters sooner than we would otherwise because they’d have to give back money. It would end up being about $305 for every $100,000 of a home’s appraised value.

going back to the taxpayers in 2027. Some school districts have such a big overage like Warrensville Heights that nobody would even pay property taxes in 2027. And I just think this is, it’s the gall of the legislators to say, hey, we’ve got a solution to your property tax problems, but it’s not actually getting at the problem at all. It’s just taking money literally from public schools. It’s absurd.

Chris Quinn (05:37.825)

It’s, it’s artificial also because they’re doing it at a very unusual moment. The districts are largely flush because during the pandemic, when the schools were closed, they saved money. They also received a lot of pandemic funds that are no longer available. So it artificially looks like they’re flush when it really not. This money is committed. It’ll be spent.

Laura (05:47.043)

Mm-hmm.

Chris Quinn (06:03.093)

It’s another sleight of hand by the Ohio house. mean, there’s almost everything they did with this budget could not be more anti Ohioan than this. It’s the worst that they’re targeting poor people, targeting minorities, they’re targeting cities, they’re targeting libraries, targeting public schools. It’s all the stuff that society is most proud of. They’re tearing it down saying, yeah, we don’t want it anymore.

Laura (06:27.982)

And it’s, I mean, we’ve talked all the time about educating kids, right? Like there’s the district, the legislature wants to make kids go to school more. And we talk about standardized tests and kids who are falling behind. Cause test scores are still not what they were before the pandemic. So if districts have extra money and not all of them do, a lot of inner city schools are really hurting right now. They should be spending that on catching up the kids from the pandemic and figuring out ways to make our society better, not.

having to play games so that legislators don’t take their money away, which they got from taxpayers who agreed to pay for it.

Chris Quinn (07:03.477)

You’re listening to Today in Ohio. We know a lot of people, a lot of people, have a strong dislike for the Haslams and thus oppose any deal involving anything that resembles public financing for a stadium. But the Haslams have put together a financing deal that on the surface looks a lot better for taxpayers than the recent deals for renovations for the Guardians and the Cavaliers. We went below the surface to check, Lela, what is the verdict here?

Leila (07:32.493)

Yeah, I concur with your assessment that a lot of people hear Haslams and public financing and they immediately think bad deal. Totally understandable. But when you actually dig into the numbers on the Brook Park proposal, it is a lot better than the deals we’ve seen for renovations at Rocket, Arena, or Progressive Field. And here’s what we found. The Haslams want, of course, the state and Cuyahoga County to each borrow $600 million to help build this huge stadium. But the way they plan to pay

Chris Quinn (07:38.604)

Yeah.

Leila (08:01.977)

to pay it back is different. About 85 % of the taxes would come directly from people who use the stadium through things like ticket and parking taxes or taxes generated by the surrounding development. Only about 15 % would fall in the general public like tourists who stay in hotels or people renting cars. So basically, if you avoid hotels in Cuyahoga County and rental cars, you won’t be paying for the stadium. When you compare that to the Cavs

Rocket Arena renovation, only about 60 % of the public money there came from Arena users. The rest came from broader tax sources, including Cleveland’s admissions tax and the county’s sin tax on alcohol and tobacco. It’s worse with Progressive Field. Less than half the money for that renovation came from the users of that facility. And just this past December, Cleveland and the county kicked in another 40 million for stadium repairs. None of it tied to people actually going to the games.

Even Mayor Bibbs’ offer to renovate the Browns’ current Lakefront Stadium would have put a bigger share on everyday taxpayers. His deal would have been about 70 % funded by users, better than the Cavs or Guardians deals, but not as good as what the Haslams are proposing for Brook Park. Now, all of that said, of course, there are still risks. The Browns haven’t laid out how they’d cover future maintenance costs, like fixing the roof down the line. Plus, some local officials are already questioning whether the tax streams

the Haslams are counting on will really be enough in the long term.

Chris Quinn (09:33.817)

In their original financing deal, yes, the projections seem rosy, but there was enough of a buffer you might cover it. There was money that was set into that for long-term maintenance, unlike the other deals, but it counts on those projections coming true. This is one where nobody wants to hear the facts. The Deshaun Watson deal, their perpetual inability to put together a winning team. It’s just people hate them.

Partly it’s their politics. They’re a Northeast Ohio owner and yet they’re very, very Republican and people in Northeast Ohio largely don’t like that. And so they see red when it comes to the Browns and they just whatever the the Houselman’s are proposing must be bad. But at heart, they’ve come up with a plan where if you’re not going to the games, it’s largely not going to affect you. And we haven’t been able to say that about any other stadium deal pretty much in the history of

Cleveland. And so that’s why it was kind of important to do the story. I don’t think people who hate them are going to take the trouble to read it. I they just want to say no, no, no. But the idea is they’re going to have to play somewhere. And they’ve come up with a deal that that for my standpoint, I don’t have to pay anything. That’s okay with me to not have to pay anything for this.

Leila (10:55.685)

That’s true. But it’s important to note, though, that none of these numbers include the massive cost of building out the infrastructure that would be needed to support that facility. We’re talking about brand new highway interchange and major road upgrades and utility work and everything it takes to handle tens of thousands of fans and plus anyone who’s coming to that surrounding development, plus anyone who’s coming to events that are held at that facility. that price tag could easily climb into the hundreds of millions of dollars. And right now it’s it’s

Chris Quinn (11:03.583)

Yeah, exactly.

Chris Quinn (11:24.503)

They argue at $75 million, which I just don’t buy. Look, part of the problem is we know the traffic to the airport is already a problem. so the bucket is filled with water. When you put the stadium over there, the bucket overflows. So it’s a problem that needs to be solved with or without the stadium, but we don’t have to do it immediately. With the stadium, we’re going to have to do it immediately, and there’s no way.

Leila (11:25.411)

Yeah, we don’t know who would be on the hook.

Leila (11:36.997)

Right.

Chris Quinn (11:54.489)

putting a new highway interchange over there, doing some of the things we’re talking about is going to be limited to 75 million. We need to have a bigger discussion about that. That’s a big deal. And of course, if Mike DeWine got his way and taxed the betting companies, they could probably built in some of the infrastructure money from there. Anyway, Rich Hexner did a wonderful job putting this together. It’s very simple to understand if you want to understand it. If you just say no, no, no, cause you hate the Haslunds then.

Don’t waste your time. You’re listening to Today in Ohio. With Donald Trump making the preposterous argument that he should serve a third term in violation of the Constitution, we wondered what Ohio’s role was in limiting presidential terms to two. Lisa, what did we find out?

Lisa (12:31.514)

you

Lisa (12:42.758)

It’s a pretty interesting story so we’re talking about the twenty second amendment that set the limit to two presidential terms back in nineteen forty seven and it would require two thirds vote in congress or at least thirty four state legislatures to call a convention to change that so back in nineteen forty seven this was quickly ratified by the ohio house.

And believe it or not, they were more Republican dominated in 1947 than they are today. It passed in the House 116 to 11. Only one GOP person voted no. That was Tom Richards of Carroll County. He said that he called it a vote against a dead man, referring to Franklin Delano Roosevelt, for which this amendment was really created. He served three terms and was starting his fourth, but he died a year into his fourth term.

The Columbus dispatch had an edit in March of that year. They urged Ohio to be the first to ratify. And they said it would reflect permanent glory on Ohio by protecting future generations from a one-party government. In April 16th, the Ohio Senate passed at 26 to five. They were the 13th state to ratify. And they were among 18, mostly Southern Republican states to do it really quickly. But it took until 1951.

until three quarters of states agreed to add it to the constitution. And so they think it was an uphill battle then, and they think it’ll be an uphill battle now. Our house speaker, Matt Huffman, said two thirds of Congress isn’t going to do that. It’s not going to change the slimmer Republican majority in both chambers. We also talked to Republican Senate spokesman, John Fortney, he says,

Well, they haven’t really discussed what they do. If Congress does repeal the 22nd amendment. So he says it’s a moot issue. He says we really need 37 other States to go along with us on that. And Trump only won 32 States.

Chris Quinn (14:33.431)

Yeah, that’s just not going to happen. There’s no way I think that that’ll come to pass. This story also looked at the paths that Trump could use, the only one of which was realistic, but not was if he was appointed the House Speaker and then the people elected president and vice president resigned so that he could step up. But let’s be real, who’s going to go to the trouble of getting elected president and then give up all that power? It’s not going to happen.

Lisa (14:35.112)

No.

Lisa (14:52.442)

Mm-hmm.

Lisa (15:00.396)

Right. And spending all that money, even though they get it from dark money packs, it’s still money spent. But you know, they’ve been flouting the Supreme Court, they’ve been flouting direct judicial orders. Who knows what’s going to happen with this?

Chris Quinn (15:16.215)

Yeah, he just can’t be on the bell. That won’t work. Good story. Check it out. It’s on cleveland.com. You’re listening to Today in Ohio. We’ve raced in our newsroom to cover the many local and state ramifications of Donald Trump’s nonstop flow of executive orders. A reader asked if we could compile our reporting into one place. We did. And wow, Laura, how many ways has he affected life in our region?

Laura (15:43.342)

So many ways. We got to put this in perspective because even if you’re following the news every day, the numbers are overwhelming. So as of April 10th last week, Trump had signed 112 executive orders. That is more than twice the 55 he signed in 2017, his first year in office the first time. Also doesn’t count for any proclamations, memorandums and other documents. Put that in a little bit more perspective, Biden signed 77 orders his first year.

And it was only 220 for Trump the entire time he was in office for those first four years. So this is just a pace that we have not seen. And as of April 11th, we had 74 stories on Cleveland.com that looked at the effects. we are we are keeping up as much as we can with the fast pace of Donald Trump, which feels sometimes like he’s just pounding on the keyboard just to see what happens and the noise that it makes and on a piano keyboard.

The thing is we react, we go out and report and then Trump retracts sometimes. And you think that as much as we can keep up, sometimes it changes midday even. So we can start with whatever topic you want, but.

Chris Quinn (16:54.477)

Well, I think the one that clearly has the most is all of the cutting they’re doing. I mean, it’s in so many walks of life. mean, first off, there’s health, right? They’re cutting the support for vaccines. We’re seeing a measles outbreak like we haven’t seen before. We got a whack-a-doo running at all saying don’t get vaccinated. So that’s upside down. We’re talking about national institutes of health studies with people in tests that are getting canceled. We’re seeing

Laura (16:59.906)

Yes.

Laura (17:04.951)

Mm-hmm.

Laura (17:18.446)

Mm-hmm.

Chris Quinn (17:22.617)

cuts to nonprofit agencies that serve the needy. We’re seeing cuts to food banks. mean, they’re just, it’s wanton and willful and reckless cutting. And that looked like one of the biggest blocks of stories in the whole package we put together.

Laura (17:32.44)

Mm-hmm.

Laura (17:38.274)

I agree because we went and we looked at each area, the Department of Education, an office in Cleveland looking at civil rights. That was completely gutted. We had a clap out photo gallery from that. We looked at cuts at NASA at National, Kaga Valley National Park. We are still working on those NIH grants, trying to get a list. looked at grants worth hundreds of millions of dollars to Kaga County and other governments about,

plans that were frozen to build electric vehicle charging stations, solar energy grants, all sorts of things. All the colleges, all the medical institutions, you’re right. And it’s not like, well, there have been thoughtful studies done here, and here’s where we think that we can save the most money and affect the least number of people. This has been just across the board slashing.

Chris Quinn (18:29.249)

Yeah, it’s it’s hard to measure just how much and because he cuts and then restores and cuts and then restores and sometimes he says he restores but the pragmatically it’s not restored. Nobody knows what to expect. Everybody’s on eggshells wondering is my job gone? Is my study gone? Is it’s just it’s been chaos, which is what I think his intent is. Build anxiety, build fear.

Laura (18:36.078)

Mm-mm.

Laura (18:50.094)

That’s it.

Chris Quinn (18:58.189)

rule through fear, become an authoritarian. that’s been one of the biggest. Immigration is another area that’s been frightening.

Laura (19:03.992)

Yes.

And tariffs, mean, those have been, they’re on, they’re off. They’re on, then hours later they’re off. The stock market has been ricocheting all over the place. And I think if you ask the average person right now where they stand, I don’t think they know because even if you are paying attention, it is really hard to keep up.

Chris Quinn (19:24.846)

Go ahead, Lisa.

Lisa (19:26.104)

No, I was just going to jump in, although I don’t want to change the subject, but let me talk about state and local budgets. mean, we’re losing housing aid. We’re losing HUD money. being asked to, you know, the cities are being asked to cancel DEI programs. They might charge interest on municipal bonds. So we’ve already lost local government funding here in Ohio and losing, you know, federal money would hurt even more.

Laura (19:34.606)

You’re

Chris Quinn (19:50.721)

Yeah, the effect on the city budget, the effect, potential effect on the state budget. And look, we don’t articulate it this straightforwardly, but I think what Trump is doing has sparked similar thinking in our state budgeting process, which has just been doing crazy things recklessly without thinking secretly. mean, there’s so much secrecy in what’s going on here. At least Trump puts out an executive order and you know where it’s going with

Lisa (20:04.463)

Mm-hmm.

Laura (20:07.896)

Mm-hmm.

Chris Quinn (20:17.869)

with stories we’re getting out of the house budget, we have to dig and dig to find them like the education package we talked about at the top of the podcast. Check it out. It’s a good package. Thanks to the reader who asked for us to do it. It’s in one place. I’m trying to add to it as we go. You’re listening to Today in Ohio. Another impact that was felt locally was wild swings in the stock prices of companies headquartered in our region. Molly Walsh took a look. Layla, what did she see?

Leila (20:47.611)

Yeah, Molly found that stock prices for a lot of Northeast Ohio companies took a real beating after Donald Trump’s surprise tariff announcement. And even though some bounced back when he hit pause a little while later, most are still pretty shaken. Cleveland Cliffs, Key Bank, Sherwin-Williams, big local names here all saw their stocks plunge more than 10 % in just a few days. Cleveland Cliffs alone dropped about 15 % after the news.

And even after rebounding, it’s still not where it started. Same with KeyBank and Sherwin-Williams. The big problem is how unpredictable everything feels right now. Companies can’t plan because they have no idea what the Trump administration will do next. And that’s especially tough for a region like ours, where so much of the economy is tied to manufacturing, meaning we’re likely to feel the hit from a tariff-driven slowdown even harder than other places. Interestingly, some companies like First Energy and Progressive

weren’t hit quite as badly. And a few like Cignet jewelers actually managed to recover most of their losses pretty quickly. But overall, is a rocky road ahead for local stocks.

Chris Quinn (21:57.837)

I think you and Lisa both nailed it in your editorial roundup that ran on Saturday on cleveland.com and in the Plain Dealer in which you said this is just an outright market manipulation. He’s doing it intentionally to get his friends richer at the expense of us all because there’s no other explanation for what he’s up to.

Lisa (22:11.034)

Mm-hmm.

Leila (22:11.674)

Mm-hmm.

Leila (22:20.155)

I’m stunned that this has that that hasn’t become the central focus of investigations. I mean that it isn’t that remarkable how he pulled that off. He himself he enriched himself through this.

Chris Quinn (22:31.841)

Yeah, right.

Lisa (22:33.338)

Mm-hmm, $415 million in a day. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Leila (22:36.335)

Unbelievable.

Chris Quinn (22:37.655)

And he was very public about it. My friend over there made this much money. mean, he said buy hours before he changed his mind and anybody who bought got richer. It’s just, it’s completely illegal. And it’s the kind of thing that should lead to direct impeachment. But with the sheep we have in Congress, that’s not going to happen.

Leila (22:45.338)

Right.

Leila (22:55.566)

Absolutely.

Lisa (22:58.19)

Yeah, like Senator John Cornyn of Texas, I saw him on CNN saying, this isn’t insider trading. It’s like, are you blind?

Chris Quinn (23:04.573)

Yeah, no, it’s insider training is secret. We’re doing it out in the open.

Leila (23:04.851)

my god.

Lisa (23:08.858)

Right!

Leila (23:10.107)

It’s so criminal that it makes the grounds of his first impeachment seem quaint. mean, I can’t believe it. We’re just...

Lisa (23:16.408)

Mm-hmm.

Chris Quinn (23:16.535)

Yeah. Well, I think there will be a swing in Congress in the midterms. Maybe there’ll be enough numbers and we can throw them out of office as a criminal then. You’re listening to Today in Ohio. We thought Jimmy DeMora would be a completely free man when Joe Biden included him among hundreds of people whose sentences were wiped clear at the end of Biden’s term. Turns out DeMora is still in the clutches of the feds for a good bit longer.

But to a lesser degree, Lisa, what is his status?

Lisa (23:47.128)

Yeah, there was a special stipulation in this. His sentence was commuted by President Biden late last year in December, just before he left office. 69 year old Jimmy DeMora had originally been charged with 28 years back in 2012, but his prison sentence was reduced and he was let out during the pandemic when they were letting people out of jail during the pandemic.

So he will now have to undergo three years of post-prison supervision starting this week, even though he was released in 2023 and his sentence was commuted. But that commutation stipulated that Demora and others who got it remain on post-prison supervision under their original sentence terms. This is pretty unusual because most clemency grants take effect quickly and they have no restrictions at all.

And for this, his restrictions for Demora, he has to report to his probation officer within 72 hours and abide by the schedule set by the officer. The probation officer must approve where and with whom he lives. If he moves, he has to let them know. He can’t possess illegal drugs and he must submit to testing and treatment. He needs permission to leave Northern Ohio. He can have no contact with known criminals or criminal activity. And he must answer all questions from the probation officer.

truthfully and file his taxes on time.

Chris Quinn (25:06.955)

I’m amazed at how many people I’ve talked to in recent months who believe that he’s a threat to come back into power because he’s showing up at political events and meddling and playing games. And because of people like Marty Sweeney, the county councilman, who just is a sycophant for Jimmy DeMora. There’s also talk his wife lives in Florida, now that he can finally leave the area with permission that he might move out of Northeast Ohio, which I think would be best for everybody.

But, but, but it’s surprising. Credible people believe there’s a path where he could once again hold power in Northeast Ohio. It just boggles the mind that it could, but Donald Trump came back. So who knows? You’re listening to Today in Ohio. We have an interesting conflict going on at Cleveland’s West Side Market, which took the unusual step of evicting two merchants while refusing to tell us why.

Lisa (25:47.862)

dear lord.

Chris Quinn (26:06.215)

One is fighting to remain. Laura, what’s the story?

Laura (26:09.602)

This is king quality produce and it’s fighting against this decision that the West Side Market made that it had to end its lease effective April 30th. Their husband and wife owners named Amman, Abraham and Mahal Mikhail, they started a petition drive on the social media platform change.org and they claim they’re being targeted because they’ve been vocal in their criticism of the conditions of the market and the leadership of it. Of course, like you said, the market’s not telling us why this lease is ending. So it’s

difficult to understand what the decision is based on. But their daughter, the owner’s daughter, Karistina Khalil, she’s a med student in Columbus. She started this petition and she’s saying that the petition calls for them to reverse their decision and protect legacy vendors from targeted removal, create transparent and fair leasing policies, and treat all vendors with the dignity and respect they deserve. She says this is a personal attack against her parents and a slippery slope in removing minority vendors.

from the market. they’re not really talking about why. So it’s hard to have a coherent conversation about it.

Chris Quinn (27:16.163)

This is one of the downsides of what they did to bring in a private nonprofit to run the market. In the old days, when Cleveland was running it, there was all public record. You wanted to throw somebody out, you had to lay it out there. You had to put the charges out before them, let them defend themselves. The secrecy it operates with now is disturbing. The people ought to know why they’re being evicted. This should be done out in public. This is a public...

building that has been put into private hands for operations. City Council should have a hearing. They should demand answers. If we move the whole operation of this into secrecy, this is going to have been a terrible idea. You’re listening to Today in Ohio. How do Ohio’s top schools rank in the latest list for graduate schools, Leila?

Leila (28:06.895)

Pretty well, actually. Ohio State really stole the spotlight this year. Its nursing master’s program was ranked the best in the country among public universities, and its law school’s dispute resolution program took the number one spot nationwide for the second year in a row. Plus, OSU’s medical and engineering program stayed really strong, with engineering cracking the top 30 in multiple categories.

Case Western Reserve University also held its ground. Its School of Medicine kept its prestigious Tier 1 status, landing in the top 15 % nationally. Case’s engineering programs in biomedical and computer engineering even notched a small improvement, though its business and law school slipped a little bit overall. And then Kent State had a strong showing too, especially in library sciences and rehab counseling, with several programs landing among the top 20 or 30 nationally.

and the University of Akron’s law school jumped nine spots thanks to better bar passage rates and job placements. So overall, it’s a really good year for Ohio’s grad schools and it shows that they’re continuing to punch above their weight in a really competitive national field.

Chris Quinn (29:14.029)

Yeah, I wonder how quickly we lose all that because of the Jerry Serino bill. professors are now going to their jobs will depend on how students rate them. So they’re going to give everybody good grades. The ridiculous dogma that people will have to go through both in the classroom for professors and for students will chase away the best and the brightest. And it’ll be interesting in five years and 10 years to see how far those schools have dropped.

Leila (29:18.266)

yeah, that crossed my mind right, totally.

Chris Quinn (29:43.659)

it’s inevitable they’ll drop. Why would a smart person want to go to them? We’re crippling them and that’s going to be the long-term result. Remember where we are now and then think back on it 10 years from now. You’re listening to Today in Ohio. That’s it for Monday. Thanks, Leila. Thanks, Lisa. Thanks, Laura. Thank you for listening. We’ll return Tuesday to talk about the news.