Today in Ohio, the daily news podcast of cleveland.com and The Plain Dealer.
CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Both Cuyahoga County executive candidates say they oppose borrowing $31 million as part of a total $46 million project to marry the Global Center to the attached Huntington Convention Center and turn it into meeting space to attract more future events.
Meanwhile, the current administration is contemplating spending even more for a skybridge.
Editor Chris Quinn hosts our daily half-hour news podcast, with impact editor Leila Atassi, editorial board member Lisa Garvin 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 for free by sending a text to 216-868-4802.
Here are the questions we’re answering today:
Did JD Vance, the Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate in Ohio, file a campaign expense report that reveals some hypocrisy?
With the Cuyahoga County Council moving to sing county residents $31 million deeper in debt to upgrade the failed Medical Mart, we asked the two guys vying to lead county government come January whether they support borrowing the money. What did they say?
How much might climate change cost Ohio municipalities in coming years, and what will the costs be for?
When we talk about gambling profits in Ohio, which we do a lot, we don’t refer much to the Ohio Lottery. But the Lottery made a bundle last year. How much, and where does all that cash go?
How is Cuyahoga County getting an extra $10 million in federal stimulus money? Is the federal government happy with how the county council is squandering $66 million through individual slush funds?
We have a rare Aug. 2 primary looming in Ohio, the result of gerrymandering confusion. What are voters going to see on their ballots?
What are the most endangered animals in Ohio?
No one was more excited than Laura Johnston at the idea of what might replace the Avon Lake power plant, which occupies prime land on Lake Erie. So, what are the ideas?
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Read the automated transcript below. Because it’s a computer-generated transcript, it contains many errors and misspellings.
Chris: [00:00:00] We’re gonna be talking about the Cuyahoga county council squandering money again today, it seems like a daily topic on today in Ohio, the news podcast discussion from cleveland.com and the plain dealer. I’m Chris Quinn here with Lisa Garvin, LAR Johnston and Leila at Tassi. And before we get to the county council, we wanna talk about a Republican JD Vance.
He’s the Republican candidate for us Senate Lisa. And he filed the campaign expense report. Does it reveal some hypocrisy?
Lisa: It most certainly does. JD Vance has been on record several times saying that he would never accept corporate PAC money most recently on a January podcast with Rabel RER, Steve Bannon.
He said, quote, sorry, I’m not going to take corporate PAC money, you know? Um, and. He wasn’t gonna do that. He also said on the campaign trail that he would refuse corporate pack money. But guess what? Since the may primary he’s accepted donations from at least 11 corporate packs of [00:01:00] $5,000 or less, including a lot of energy companies, ExxonMobil marathon petroleum, Phillips 66, and other energy companies also rock holdings, which is.
Michigan company owned by Dan Gilbert. So yeah, big turnaround there. Vance spokesman, Taylor van Kirk says, well, you know, Tim Ryan, our opponent has accepted millions of dollars from corporate packs and money from lobbyists and teachers unions. He also called Ryan a rubber stamp radical, and they will use all of their tools at their disposal to defeat Ryan.
And I guess that includes corporate pack. Well,
Chris: what what’s amazing about this is it’s a real ends justify the means move it’s you say on principle, I’m not taking corporate PAC money. I don’t like what corporate PAC money is doing to elections. And then you take the money because you say, well, the ends justify the means I have to win.
That’s not principle. I mean, here’s a guy who’s claiming he’s running on principle and standing for all sorts of things. This guy is one of the [00:02:00] biggest wafflers we’ve ever seen in Ohio. I mean, if you go back to 2016 and that version of JD Vance, and look at the current version, I mean the original version was completely anti Donald Trump.
Then he became a big fan of Donald Trump, but this is the latest example of that. He doesn’t stand for anything except.
Lisa: Right. And, and I don’t even know what his platform is. I don’t know that I’ve heard a substantive platform from Vance
Chris: winning. I think that’s his only platform. , I’ll do whatever it takes to get in there and have the power so that I can completely corrupt the American system.
It’s it’s sad, but it, but it needs to be pointed out. In a big way. It’s why it’s the first story on the podcast because this guy could be the us Senator from Ohio. He doesn’t stand for anything. And he’s shown that he’ll reverse a position on a dime. So no matter what he says today, you don’t know what he’s gonna be tomorrow.
Who is the real JD Vance? I don’t know if he exists. Anyone wanna
Lisa: debate [00:03:00] me on this? No, I, yeah. Who knows? He’s he’s a moving target.
Chris: all right. You’re listening to today in Ohio with the Cuyahoga county council, moving to sync county residents, $31 million deep in debt to upgrade the failed medical Mar we asked the two guys vying to lead county government come January.
Whether they support borrowing the money. Layla, what did they say?
Leila: Well, both the Republican candidate, Lee WGAR and the Democrat, Chris Roan say that they oppose borrowing this money, the 31 million to pay for this renovation. And, and the renovation would essentially make the medical Mart, which is the global center for her.
What is it? The global center of her health innovation. This grand extension of the convention center Winegart has been staunchly opposed since the project was proposed. When, when. Talked to Caitlin Durbin about it this week, he called it a vanity project that the county just can’t afford given all the other needs.
He, he said, it’s callous for the county to spend money on this based on the [00:04:00] speculative hope that will increase the number of conventions held in Cleveland or the revenues generated from those events. None of which he believes ultimately benefits the people who have to foot the bill, which. Us the residents and Roan this week said that the county is rushing to spend this money before the new administration takes, hold in in just a matter of months, really, he says that funding should go toward the higher priority needs of the county.
For example, he pointed to the kids who were in county custody, who were living at the county division of children and family services office. Been reported allegations of really dangerous con conditions in that facility. So Roan said, he’d like to see the global center use in a way where renters would fill the space and pay for their own renovations, which would free up county money for other needs.
But of course, you know, that facility has been vacant for years. And right now it’s most reliable tenant as the court of common please jury selection. So I’m not sure if that model would succeed either, but Roan called for an audit of downtown [00:05:00] meeting space in general. He said, we need to know. What we’re trying to solve be before we put the cart before the horse.
So both of these guys were pretty adamantly opposed to borrowing this 31 million. And so if county council is gonna plow forward and, and approve this, this, uh, uh, you know, this plan, then they’re gonna be doing so against the, uh, uh, you know, the, the wishes and the, the, you know, the feelings of their future executive, whichever one of these guys prevails.
Chris: Ronan raises a good point though. Where’s the rush on the kids, right? They’re rushing to squander this money to lock in the next executive, which is all, this is at this point. And where’s the rush for the kids, right? Where where’s the crisis bell for the kids. They’re not, they don’t, they’re not. This isn’t about doing the job.
This is about sticking it to the next administration. Also his idea of looking at the meeting space. That’s a great idea. Mm-hmm they’re they don’t even have the information to know whether they need [00:06:00] this. There are several other things to, to think about here. And one is it came up in the conversation.
They wanna expand the plan. It could be even more money. I know with a sky
Leila: Bridge’s about, I know Arvin Buddhi at the meeting this week, throws this out there where he is talking about. He wants to spend even more money to build a SkyBridge, connecting the Marriot to the conventions. Center, you know, during, during the meeting, he’s he Def he’s defending the proposed renovations and, and floats this potential where he says, you know, , he says that apparently Jack, Jack Shon, Councilman Jack Shon, floated this idea.
At some point, he said, uh, you know, to build this connection between the, the facilities and, and, and, uh, Buddhi is saying. You know, we’ve given this a lot of thought. We’d love to get any additional fee input, but it seems like a good idea. And if we’re gonna do it, we should now would be the time now would be the time.
right. Now’s the time to pull the plug of the whole dang thing. If you ask me, I mean, what the, I don’t know.
Chris: The other [00:07:00] thing that I, I think is instructive at this point is we are now just over five months away from the next administration. So there is no reason to rush at this point, right? You can wait five months to work with them and what I’m, what I’m wondering now.
And I think we’re gonna end up working on a story about this is. Will it matter. I mean, if they go ahead and, and do this, or if they go ahead and buy the toxic site for the jail, or if they do any of the other dumb things that we’ve been talking about to try and lock in the next administration, do they really lock them in?
I mean, we’ve had you guys probably don’t remember, but the county bought the Ameritrust building involving a deal with the sta back companies back 15. Some years ago to make their county administration building. And the whole thing blew up in their faces. It was very ugly. There was scandal and they ended up selling it at a loss, but who cares?
Mm-hmm so, you know, they buy, they Chris Rohan or Lee WGAR will have the, the hands on the [00:08:00] checkbook. I mean, the county can authorize spending money, but. Those guys are the ones that write the checks and they don’t have to write the checks. So, so they could come into office and say, taxpayers, I’m canceling this deal.
I’m not gonna go for, it’s gonna cost us a couple of million because of the shameful irresponsible practices of the previous administration and the county council. But I’m here from you. I heard what you said. The med Mar is not worth spending money. So in the end, All this will do is damage their legacy.
The other thing I should say is whoever votes for this, we’re putting their picture name on front street, because one of the problems with this county government is no one knows who they are. Right? Mm-hmm I mean, who knows who they are, every time I ask somebody, who’s your county council person, nobody knows.
We’re gonna make sure people know. Who voted to squander this money. Jack was the guy, the Republican was the guy that suggested the sky bridge. Is that right?
Leila: Yeah. Yeah. That’s that’s according to Caitlin’s, uh, reporting. Yeah, he, he, that was apparently the, the source of that [00:09:00] idea. And you’re right, like back in the day, when, when it was just the commissioners, there were three of ‘em and it was easier to, to pinpoint where these bad ideas are coming from.
well, now we’ve got, oh gosh, there’s so many council members and, and they can all, uh, they can hide, they can hide and. Uh,
Chris: it’s I was having a debate about this, this week with somebody who thinks we need to change a charter again, and they wanna more or less go back to what we had with some guardrails.
But the truth is Armen Buddhi has been unable to get his hands around issuing tax bills. I mean, you get ‘em with almost no time to return them. Uh, they’ve screwed it up a number of times where they sent ‘em out late. When we had a treasurer, you knew who it was. And they knew they were accountable and everybody knew who they were because they paid attention.
I just, I wonder whether by creating this amorphous loser council, we’ve taken away, government accountability, they’re they clearly people don’t want the [00:10:00] med mark deal. I mean, we’ve heard this time and time again. Don’t spend the money, do something with it, but, but you haven’t done your homework at all on what is the best way to proceed?
You’re just trying to sign a contract. Before the next guy comes in and nobody knows who they are. We’re gonna do our best to change that. But I do wonder whether this government reform was one of the worst ideas we ever had and we were big backers of
Laura: it. I don’t, I totally disagree with that. I mean, you know who to blame you, blame Armon.
Buddhi she’s the one that oversees the treasurer. If that’s the problem. I mean, I don’t, it’s supposed to put one person in charge so that you can hold that person accountable. The problem. we have a one party system in this county. That’s the bigger problem. And you have some council members that treat this like a full-time job and.
To create their own legacy that way with pet projects.
Chris: But I don’t know, Laura that we ever had, the level of incompetence we have. Now look, when you had the county commissions really demo no, no wait, but when [00:11:00] you had the county commissioners, Jimmy Deora was bad news, but Tim Hagen, Peter Lawson Jones, Jane Campbell, Tim McCormack going all the way back.
You had people. That took the job and served, you might disagree with, with some things they did, but they largely did a good job. Jim Roka had a great reputation when he was serving and you know, so yes. And Frank, yeah, Frank Russo was a major loser as auditor. So is there a way to do guardrails, but by and large.
This council, this 11 member council is a failure. There’s 11 people. We’ve elected. Nobody is standing up for the taxpayers. That’s not what we had before. When we elected the individuals, they largely were accountable to the taxpayers and tried to do the right thing. We either have to figure out a way to put them on front street and make them accountable.
So people know. Who these people are, who are squandering their money or talk about reform.
Laura: Anyway, I, I agree. I mean, I do think we should be more engaged with, you know, who your council members [00:12:00] are and then hopefully there’s more competition because if no one ever runs against you, then you just keep cruising.
Chris: we are gonna beg people to run and we are going to remind people of, of every vote these county council members are making now on the jail, on the med Mar on. Permanently extending the sales tax and they’re making so many decisions right now that run countered what taxpayers are telling us they want.
Laura: I mean, let’s remember who started that sales tax back in 2007, right? That was the three commissioners who wanted to build the med Mar in the first
Chris: place. That’s true. You’re listening to today in Ohio. how much might climate change cost Ohio municipalities in coming years? And what will the cost before are Johnsons another eye opening piece from our environmental reporter, Pete
Yeah, this is a whole lot of money. And so it, it really makes the idea of climate change tangible, instead of just saying it’s pretty hot, right? Ohio municipalities, willing to spend between 1.8 billion and 5.9 [00:13:00] billion a year by 2050 to address. Climate change. And this is both, I’m sorry, both the temperature getting warmer as well as extreme weather events.
And it covers all sorts of things that these are gonna have to pay for crumbling roads, air conditioning for hotter school classrooms, enhanced water treatment. And the, the water treatment is actually the biggest deal in Ohio. We’re talking about harmful algal blooms in lake Erie. And I know the last couple years we’ve been like, oh, they’re not so bad.
They’re trying to. D, you know, decrease this phosphorus, flowing into the mommy river that will decrease these, these algal blooms. But as the rainstorms get heavier and more damaging and as the water and the air get warmer, the algal blooms get more severe and bigger, and we could see a day. That Cleveland is affected by these Al blooms.
So they’re gonna have to spend a lot of money to battle the toxicity and treat it and, and do the early warning systems. Cleveland alone would be spending 19 million to 71 billion million above its [00:14:00] baseline cost of 26 million already on this blooms. Uh, the next one, I hadn’t even thought about elevating roads to get them out of.
Flood zones. And they’re talking about 860 million to 1.7 billion on that because , I mean, we’ve seen it on Putin bay and places like that when the water level gets real high, but anywhere around, around the rivers, they could be in danger.
Chris: The, the, the ideas in this story got me wondering whether beyond the municipality cost, the homeowner cost mm-hmm
I mean, when you replace a roof with an asphalt shingle, you’ve traditionally have expected that to last 25, 30 years, but with the downpour of rain, I wonder if roofers are noticing that they’re wearing out faster and the homeowners are having. To put those on more frequently. Uh, and you wonder about whether the hard rain has effects on people’s yards and things over
Like, I mean, talk about driveways, right? That same driveway issue as, as the roads [00:15:00] issue, because there’s more free, soft cycles and that’s harder on your driveway and you get more potholes, so yeah. We’re gonna be paying for it. The thing is Republicans have been so hands off when it comes to combating climate change, because they don’t.
Spend money or hurt businesses and look where that’s gotten us to the point that we’re gonna have to spend billions of dollars to combat the problems of climate change. And what’s interesting is this report was saying, we shouldn’t have to pay this as taxpayers. We should hold the corporation’s most responsible for this.
Responsible, just like we did with opioid manufacturers and, and distributors and have governments Sue them. This stat was eye opening. 70% of industrial greenhouse gas is emitted. Since 1988 can be blamed on 100 oil and gas companies. Just 100.
Chris: It’s an interesting idea. It’d be interesting to see how far they get with that.
The problem of course, is it’s a longer range problem and elected leaders never look that far [00:16:00] down the road. They’re looking at getting reelected in two or four years. And so they’re not going to spend big money to solve a problem when they’re retired, they only pay attention to the now. But
Laura: that was the first time I’ve heard that idea that we should be actually holding the corporations responsible.
It feels like government’s still cowtowing to them. And you know how many, what we do with HB six. We withdrew our renewable energy requirements, right? Because first energy didn’t want them. So this is completely turning that on a 10 and saying you caused this, you fix it.
Chris: Okay, you are listening to today in Ohio.
When we talk about gambling profits in Ohio, which we do a lot, we don’t refer much to the Ohio lottery. The lottery made a big bundle of cash last year. How much Lisa and where does it all go?
Lisa: Yeah. In the fiscal year of July, 2021, which ended at the end of June, they made 4.3 billion in sales from scratch offs, Powerball, and keynote.[00:17:00]
They also made 1.3 billion in video lottery machines, which were used in Recinos. And this is up 112 million from the previous fiscal year. And profits are up 46 million. So. Yeah. Wow. And scratch offs accounted for. More than half of that. 2.3 billion in scratch off sales, 117 million of that was for the $20 tickets that are called the 300 million diamond Dazzler.
So people spending $20 on one scratch off ticket. Um, also the pick three and the pick four earned about 2 billion. Profits have increased steadily since 2012. And that kind of tracks with when race tracks became Recinos and had these video lottery machines installed this money. The, uh, $1.4 billion goes to the lottery education fund that supports K through 12 special ed and vocational programs.
Chris: We had a story. I think it was us who had this. I read it that [00:18:00] a study found that lottery. Outlets were concentrated around neighborhoods in poverty, which I did read that it strikes you then $20 for, can you imagine spending $20 for a scratch off
Lisa: ticket? But then there was a lady in that article who, who spent like, like a hundred dollars a day on scratch off.
She would go buy, scratch off. So like three different times a day and spend all this money on scratch offs every day.
Chris: Yeah, I get that. It makes a lot of money, but you do have to wonder whether what we’ve really done with the lottery commission and all of this is just feed an addiction to gambling that, that people who can’t really afford this are addicted.
And to spend that much money on scratch off tickets a day, that’s not healthy, right? That’s not recreation. That’s a lot of money. You’re flushing down the toilet. Yeah. I don’t know, frightening stuff. It’s a lot of money. It’s good for education, I guess, but I wonder what the real effect is [00:19:00] in the human toll.
It’s today in Ohio. How is Cuyahoga county getting an extra 10 million in federal stimulus money? They like can’t be that the federal government is happy that the county council is squandering 66 million on slush funds. Well, I think the
Leila: feds are yet to weigh in on slush funds, Chris, we haven’t heard from them on that, but, uh, state officials announced Wednesday that they’re contributing half.
Of the 19.4 million that the county had previously approved in American rescue plant act funds for expanding broadband access in the county. Their goal was the county’s goal is providing affordable high speed broadband to 25,000 households by mid 2024. So the state money is actually coming from the state’s general fund.
It not, not APA, but it’ll free up 9.7 million in the county’s APA fund for the county to spend elsewhere. Know, on transformational golf courses. So , um, [00:20:00] Lieutenant governor, John Hughes said that the state considers broadband access to be a top priority for the state, uh, that you can’t really participate in the modern economy or healthcare education without it.
And as Armen Buddhi pointed out at the news conference, the problem is really acute in COGA county, where a hundred thousand residents lack any form of internet access. So this will. I don’t know, give, give the, the county a chance to use almost 10 million someplace else. And, uh, I’m sure it’ll get SQU.
Chris: Yeah. I, in some ways I wish the state had not done this. No. So that, that 10 million could be used for good cause. Right. These guys will just squander it the way they’ve been squandering it left and right. But, and it’s good news that the state’s investing in broadband, but you’re almost like wincing at the idea of what this council would do.
I, I know, but you’re listening to today in Ohio. All right, Laura, you asked to talk about this monster. I’m giving it to you. We have a rare August, second [00:21:00] primary looming in Ohio. That result of all that gerrymandering confusion. What are voters seeing on their ballots?
Laura: Just the state legislative races and just the primary, obviously, because the general is in November.
So plenty of voters will not have contested races on their. and the board of elections is expecting a really small turnout. There’s 21% in the may primary. We’re probably gonna be half of that if we even get there. And this is all very confusing to voters, we’re not used to an August 2nd primary, obviously it’s the first Tuesday in August.
So it’s barely into August and it’s a product of redistricting. The legal challenges meant the house and Senate. District maps for Ohio were not ready by may. So it got pushed back. Um, and so I, I, I, I don’t think most people are gonna be voting. There is some interesting races on there, including the, the most interesting and two Democrats running against each other after Republicans drew their old districts into less politically [00:22:00] advantageous conditions.
So Monique Smith and bride Rose Sweeney are running against each other. Um, and that some bad blood between them too.
Chris: Well, I wanna correct you cuz it’s not just the legislative races. We also have the party committee people on ballot. I’m sorry. Yes. And, and that’s a big monstrosity and what’s interesting is Seth Richardson, our political writer has been working for a week to try and find the original reason.
More than a century ago that party committee people were put on the ballot. They’re private organizations, that there is some public function we’re getting closer and closer to the actual reason. And I’m not gonna give it away here, but it’s, it’s really interesting. That nobody has the straight goods on it.
And, and Seth’s story, lots of people are interested. I put this out on the text messaging account and everybody was like, yeah, that’s a good question. It came from a letter to the editor. We [00:23:00] will have the answer. I hope in the next. Few days. And
Laura: most, some people are probably very confused about what district they’re in.
So you can see that in Andrew Tobias’s story, we have all of the, the maps, which are still considered constitutionally gerrymandered and not fair, but that’s what we’ve got for right now.
Chris: Yeah, the voters have a rare chance they can vote in what is basically an illegal election and then brag to their grandchildren that they were there.
you’re listening to today in Ohio. What are the most endangered animals in Ohio? Lisa? I love these kinds of stories cuz they’re unexpected and. Always kind of interesting.
Lisa: Yeah. Yeah. The Ohio department of natural resources released their list of native species and subspecies that are threatened with, I love this word extrication, which is a, a fancy word for extinction.
Um, mostly due to pollution, habitat loss, species competition from invasive species and, uh, predation. So on the list, there are, are 130. Species, [00:24:00] uh, there’s five amphibians, one bee, the rusty patch bumblebee, which is in the most danger. So the three animals or creatures that they saw as most endangered in Ohio is the rusty patch bumblebee that it’s probably because of fungal pathogens.
And we know that other bees have been infected with colony collapse disorder. Um, also the Chiodo mad Tom, which is a small catfish. It was last seen in 1957. So it’s kind of considered extinct, but they’re gonna kind of leave it on list in. Something shows up again, there are 25 fish altogether on the list.
23 Mo mosks including the fan shell, which is endangered. We also have one pseudo scorpion on the list. Five reptiles, 20 dragonflies, eight butterflies, and six mammals, including the black bear, which is interesting because we’ve actually seen more sightings of black bear recently in Ohio and also the little brown [00:25:00] bat.
Chris: The rusty patch, bumblebee sounds like the title of a children’s book. You hope that the bee survives just because it’s such a, such a cool name. Um, I, the black bear is interesting because you’re right. We’ve been reporting. That it’s making a comeback that we do see it almost every year. Now that somebody gets a picture in a tree in lake county or Juga county wandering over from Pennsylvania.
So I’m, I’m a little bit surprised that that’s listed, but maybe it’s because they were so predominant years ago and they’re they’re so could be now.
Lisa: And I also saw there are 10 birds on the list, including the snowy egret and in Texas, there are snowy egrets all over the place. I don’t think that’s changed very much so, but, but I’ve yet to see one here in Ohio and the piping Clover, which is endangered across the, across the world.
Chris: Okay, check out the list. It’s on cleveland.com. You’re listening to today in Ohio. No one was more excited than Laura Johnson at the idea of what [00:26:00] might replace the Avon lake power plant, which occupies prime land on lake Erie. Laura, we have the ideas. What are they?
Laura: Yeah, this is a big opportunity for more lake access for the whole region.
And we’re talking about 40 acres. That’s a huge parcel. So the ideas are for a new beach and amp theater seating, kind of like Lakewood SOLs to steps. So you’d be able to enjoy it. This is not gonna be completely a public park though. This is Avon lake environmental redevelopment group is doing the plans and they hope to create business opportunities as well as a shoreline drive waterfront park and.
Just areas for people to access the lake. So they wanna take the power plants, turbine hall, their transformer building, and pumphouse to keep it. And turn that into office space or retail, um, creative uses and there’s basement space that they say could be a parking garage that could fit 800 cars, which it’s really interesting cuz you don’t think of like a park with a parking garage, but [00:27:00] they had a bunch of residents come out on Tuesday night, I believe to give their opinions.
And there are some really nice renderings they’ve got so far. Avon lake mayor says that this could drastically change the city though. It could take decades for it all to be done.
Chris: I was a little surprised. I’ve gotta tell you that they didn’t wanna just demolish everything and have a pristine site for full development.
We don’t have anything like this anywhere else in our area, on the lake. And to get that big of a track, the land to really imagine what you could do, but don’t, you kind of handcuff yourself by keeping the buildings that are there.
Laura: I mean, yes, but it’s also, it’s the past, right? This plant was built in 1926, so it’s almost a hundred years old.
And I think there’s some, I don’t wanna say nostalgia for a power plant, but it’s cool. Like the building, the way that they have it rendered as retrofitted is interesting. And they’re not gonna make this just a field, right. Where [00:28:00] cuz this. Supposed to make money as well. This is not just like the city turning into a park.
So I, I mean, maybe the idea is you’re gonna have a business that works well with the outdoors that kind of, they attract each other and, and kind of have a sustainable future for the place that would bring people all the time. Not just in the summer, cuz we have a whole lot of months of the year that you wouldn’t otherwise be on the lake.
Chris: So nostalgia for a smoke stack. That’s what you’re telling me. I don’t
Laura: know. I, I actually, I sh I don’t know if the smoke stack would stay because I hope not. I mean, you can see that thing wherever you are in Cleveland it’s cuz it’s on Avon point, right? Like it sticks out into the lake and um, you know, people who get their wedding pictures taken on the lake, they Photoshop that out.
Chris: right. right. It’s a power plant. It’s an eyesore. Why not tear that stuff down? Put up sites for restaurants and offices and green space. It just seemed like a big opportunity to, to have a blank slate. [00:29:00] I, the good thing is they’re getting lots of feedback from residents. Mm-hmm , uh, Megan’s story talked about how they work.
Did and they set up tables for people to talk about it. Uh, it seems like they’re doing a lot of things, right. To bring in what the public thinks about the use of the lakefront, which is a positive.
Laura: Yeah, absolutely. Getting everybody isn’t it kind of a
Leila: monument to the cause of climate change
That’s still’s what I’m thinking.
Leila: I mean, unless you’re going to like murals all over it of like flowers and earthy scenes or something like that to kind of like turn it on its head. But I don’t know. I see
Lisa: the, I mean, the, the, the power plant in east lake, you know, you can see those, those smokestacks from, uh, from quite a distance away.
You can see ‘em from Euclid beach. I always thought of him as an interesting landmark myself. That’s just, he’s such an optimist.
Chris: I, I, this, these are the kind of conversations that are great people thinking about what’s best for a site. Good stuff, good disagreement. And hopefully they’ll bubble up good [00:30:00] ideas and make a, a positive for the residents you’re listening to today in Ohio.
That wraps up the Thursday episode. Thanks, Lisa. Thank you, Laura. Thanks Layla. Thanks everybody for listening. We’ll be back Friday, wrapping up the week.
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