CLEVELAND, Ohio - The Ohio Supreme Court released a two-sentence decision Tuesday on a gender-affirming care ban for minors, with zero detail. We’re puzzling over how Chief Justice Sharon Kennedy and Justice Jennifer Brunner ended up on the same side -- dissent -- on Today in Ohio. 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: Here’s one for the record books. The chief justice of the Supreme Court, Sharon Kennedy, joined with her former opponent, Jennifer Brunner, in a dissent on a transgender case. What is this about, and why did they dissent? Dave Yost lost a big one, a battle against a move to let more people sue police officers. But the effort still faced a big hurdle. What was the hurdle, and what happened Tuesday? With summer approaching, and based on what we saw last year, we can expect a lot of spotted lanternflies in Northeast Ohio soon. What’s the new weapon in battling them at the Cleveland Metroparks. Cleveland is putting some new rules on employers seeking to fill jobs. What are they, and what happens if people don’t adhere to them? Reporter Rich Exner took a deeper dive into a subject we’ve been talking about, the potential for gridlock at the airport if the Browns build a covered stadium in Brook Park. What is the upshot? The Cleveland Federal Reserve Bank released a report on how the Trump tariffs likely will play out in the Northeast Ohio economy. It’s not great. The first cruise ship of the season arrived in Cleveland Tuesday. What’s the prediction for cruise traffic this season? The Cleveland Clinic has come up with what sounds like a smart use of artificial intelligence. How might it make patient lives easier with accurate billing? Lisa, I never heard of the subject of this next story, but depending on when you left Cleveland for Texas, maybe you did. What was the Front Row Theater, what made it special and why are we talking about it now? We have an Apple podcasts channel exclusively for this podcast. Subscribe here. Do you get your podcasts on Spotify? Find us here. RadioPublic is another popular podcast vehicle, and we are here. On PodParadise, find us here. And on PlayerFM, we are here. Read the automated transcript below. Because it’s a computer-generated transcript, it contains many errors and misspellings. Chris Quinn (00:01.274) the final day of April on Today in Ohio. It’s all good news from here on in for the summer’s approach. And it’ll only be a month or so, Laura, before I ask. And isn’t it going by fast? Today in Ohio, the news podcast discussion from cleveland.com and the Plain Dealer. I’m Chris Quinn here with Lisa Garvin, Laura Johnston and Courtney Astolfi. Lisa, here’s one for the record books. The Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, Republican Sharon Kennedy. joined with her former opponent for that seat, Democrat Jennifer Bruner, in a dissent on a transgender case. What is this case about? Lisa (00:38.814) So this was a House Bill 68. This is a law that bans gender affirming care to people under 18. In a two sentence order on Tuesday, the Ohio Supreme Court decided to uphold that law for now while it goes through the appeals process. So this was a lawsuit that was filed by the Ohio ACLU on behalf of two transgender teen girls who were 12 years old at the time. Attorney General Dave Yost had asked to stay the appeals court ruling that blocked enforcement of the law. you know, basically the Supreme Court granted his request. Among the dissenters, as you said, Chief Justice Sharon Kennedy, a Republican joined by Republican Pat Fischer and also Democrat Jennifer Bruner. We don’t know why they dissented. It was just a very short order. So this law prohibits puberty blockers and hormone therapy for any minors under 18. ACLU legal director Friede Levinson says our clients suffered irreparable harm in the eight months since this law was passed. They were denied essential health care and the appeals court agreed that House Bill 68, they say, violates at least two provisions of the Ohio Constitution. On the other hand, Ohio attorney general Davios, his office is pleased. They will says it will show once again that the legislature acted properly to enact this constitutional law. that protects kids from irreversible medical decisions. I would love to know the reason for the dissent. They didn’t say, but it’s interesting that two Republicans signed on to that dissent. Chris Quinn (02:14.56) Yeah, I really am flummoxed by this because it could be that they feel the same way the appellate court did, that this law is likely to be ruled illegal and so we may as well keep in the block until that happens, or it’s some technical thing that they’re just saying, yeah, well, because of the way the appeal is going, it should be done. I wish they would have written what their dissent was about. I wish the justices that... made the decision they made would say it. Is it because they believe the law ultimately will be upheld? This is the law that Mike DeWine originally vetoed, right? So there are questions about whether it’s legitimate. It does seem to take away the rights of parents, but not listing reasons really does the public a disservice. Just odd as heck that you have Bruner and Kennedy on the same side. Lisa (02:53.838) Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Lisa (03:12.642) Chris Quinn (03:14.716) All right, you’re listening to Today in Ohio. Laura, Dave Yost lost a big one, a battle against the move to let more people sue police officers. But that effort has still faced a hurdle. What was it and what happened Tuesday with it? Laura (03:29.384) This is the ballot board part of the hurdle, but you’re right. This has been two years of battling over this amendment, two years of rewrites and legal legalese back and forth over the state constitutional amendment proposal, which would limit legal protections for police officers in Ohio. So it’s finally moving forward. The Ohio ballot board on Tuesday, unanimously voted to let the supporters of the amendment. start gathering signatures. And what this would do is end qualified immunity for police officers. That’s that legal doctrine that shields all government officials, including the police officers, from personal liability and civil lawsuits, unless they violate what’s called clearly established constitutional rights. O’Hayla also protects government from civil lawsuits over injuries or deaths, unless they can prove that the official acted with malicious purpose, in bad faith, or in a wanton or reckless manner. So this, sorry, manner. So this would eliminate that defense so that individuals could be sued for these rights violations. And they’ve been trying to get this before voters since February of 2023. Attorney General Dave Yost rejected the summary language, which is the language that actually appears on the ballot, nine times. Chris Quinn (04:46.428) I raised this question with some of the editors this morning. There’s been a lot of energy spent on this. This battle with Dave Yost going all the way up to the U.S. Supreme Court. But when you come back to what this is basically about, the ability of people to sue police officers, I think that the opponents to this can very effectively make it sound like it’s an anti-police question. And in quite red Ohio these days, I don’t see people voting for something that is cast as anti-police. Is all of this effort for nothing? Because if this goes to the ballot, it will likely lose. Laura (05:28.788) That’s a really good question. They’ve been fighting this for two years. They have to get hundreds of thousands of signatures to even get it on the ballot. So that’s another hurdle. We may never see this. mean, obviously, it’s harder to get, well, the General Assembly wants to make it harder to get things on the ballot. So I don’t know. It’s a very good question. I don’t know what the general consensus is about police if people like police right now. Chris Quinn (05:56.336) But I think in the cities, you might get some votes against it or get in favor of this. But across most of rural Ohio, I just don’t see it. And I think there’ll be some money put into fighting it, casting it very clearly as this is allowing people to go after our trusted police officers who are out there doing heroic work. And so, you know, we’re going to spend all this money and all this time for something that I don’t really think has a chance of passing. Laura (06:15.325) And all the... Laura (06:26.164) Well, and it’s pretty easy for, I mean, we’ve seen the PR campaigns over ballot issues in Ohio. We’ve seen the red China ads for FirstEnergy. We’ve seen all sorts of terrible ads and postcards and coming out. So I could see people painting this with a Black Lives Matter kind of paintbrush and saying, you know, and trying to divide people based on their views on all sorts of matters. And we talk about solar energy and why we can’t get that through in Ohio. It’s just like, if you paint it with the liberal brush and say, these are the liberals that are trying to wreck our society, then yeah, it’s not going to go anywhere. Chris Quinn (07:02.588) If we’re going to spend this kind of time and money, it really ought to be about money going, tax dollars going to private schools. Because I think that would lose huge. If you put that before voters, I 70 % of them are going to say that ends today and would be very successful in ending what the legislature and Mike DeWine are trying to do in destroying the public school system. But this one, I just tilt my head and think, what are you thinking? I just don’t see it. But maybe I’m wrong. Laura (07:24.233) Laura (07:28.862) We couldn’t get a redistricting amendment passed. Chris Quinn (07:32.558) Right. You’re listening to Today in Ohio. If you love dogs, you’re going to love this story with summer approaching and based on what we saw last year, we can expect a lot of spotted lantern flies in Northeast Ohio soon. Courtney, what’s the weapon that’s going to be used to battle them in Cleveland Metro parks? Courtney (07:52.146) We have an adorable new weapon to go after this invasive fly. Some well-trained local puppers are on the hunt for eggs that spotted lantern flies leave, you know, pretty much everywhere now that they’re in Northeast Ohio. And so this all came about because of a local woman, 30-year-old Paige Malone. She’s been participating in, it’s called scent work competitions. with her little corgi named Bronco. And the pair, along with several other local folks, recently participated in a research project from the Virginia Tech University that taught Bronco and his buddies how to sniff out spotted lanternfly eggs. And so after this local group participated in that research project with their dogs, the pups were kind of all trained up for this task. So Malone went to the Metro parks to see if they could kind of put these new skills to use and the Metro parks gladly welcomed the help. know, the spotted lantern fly is a big problem. It emerged in Cleveland a couple years ago and there’s really no end in sight. So any efforts to reduce that population is a good thing. And going after the egg clusters, which is what these dogs do, is more effective than squishing the bugs on site, as we’ve all kind of been told to do the last couple years if we see it when we’re out and about. So basically these dogs are walked out into the metro parks, they know what they’re sniffing out, and they find these masses of eggs, each contain about 30 to 50 eggs, and the metro parks have given the dog’s owners like scraper tools so that they can get rid of the eggs once the dogs find. Chris Quinn (09:39.696) There was a number of what was it like a thousand or something that they got at the Metropark Zoo? Courtney (09:46.267) Yeah, it’s already it’s already kind of blowing up. In that degree, there were a lot found at the zoo, the dogs are going to keep going out a few more times this season. But they’re kind of on a limited timeframe here. These eggs are going to hatch in the next couple weeks. And at that point, the dog services will have to hang tight until next season. But they’re trying to get as many as they can. In the meantime, you know, the other side of this coin is there’s going to be so many of these flies that they’re still gonna proliferate even with these dogs’ efforts. Chris Quinn (10:18.756) Yeah, I would love to see a video though. The dogs racing from tree to tree pointing to them. The numbers are just so staggering. If there are that many just at the zoo, we’re going to be surrounded by these things. I I saw a few last year, but I expect it’ll be like the deer. They’ll be here all the time. You’re listening. Courtney (10:39.195) It’s a threat to fruit trees, grapevines, it’s a problem. Chris Quinn (10:42.798) Yeah, no, they’re they’re bad bugs, clearly. You’re listening to Today in Ohio. Cleveland is putting some new rules on employers seeking to fill jobs. What are they Lisa and what happens if people don’t adhere to them? Lisa (10:56.482) Yeah, Cleveland City Council unanimously approved a new law Monday night. It requires all Cleveland employers to post the salary ranges and they cannot ask applicants about their current salary. So this will take effect in six months. Fines for violations could be up to $5,000, but Councilmember Stephanie Howe says the fines are really a last resort. They’re just trying to put teeth into this ordinance and they really don’t want to penalize employers. It’s really more about eliminating pay disparities by gender or race. So Columbus, Toledo and Cincinnati do have similar laws on the books. Other states have it as well. What was really, and I’ve been through this. I actually had a huge pay bump because we discovered that women were getting paid less at the University of Texas than men were. So I went through that. But I think what was really eye-opening for me was that they looked at statistics. So we know that in Cuyahoga County, women make 81.8 cents to every dollar that men earn. That’s according to 2023 data. But if you break down women by race or ethnicity, Asian women make 94 cents to a dollar, white women make 80 cents to a dollar, black... women make 66 cents and Hispanic women make 58 cents to one dollar that a man earns. That’s shocking. Chris Quinn (12:19.732) So is the thinking here that by having transparency on the salary range employers won’t be able to undercut the save money by offering women or or whoever Less money that that once you publish the range people know that they have to get at least the bottom of that range Lisa (12:41.194) Exactly. you know, going from my experience, it took the Texas Tribune to publish the salary ranges of everybody that worked for the University of Texas. And it was quite eye opening. And I had three jobs across the state, you know, and like I said, I got a $12,000 raise one year because they discovered that we were paying being paid much less, not only as a woman, but much less than a similar job in the private sector. Chris Quinn (13:07.096) And the thought about not being able to ask people what they make, the whole thinking there is that you should pay somebody what the job is worth and it should have nothing to do with what they’re being paid now. Lisa (13:19.426) Yeah, correct. And we were not allowed to discuss salaries. That was like just, you know, not something that you did. And, you know, I think once people started to do that and saw what was posted on the Texas Tribune, they’re like, my gosh. So yeah. Chris Quinn (13:34.492) So the secrecy that’s existed is very much played into saving money for employers and it’s hurt the employees. It’s an interesting discussion to see this. It’s kind of a profound change in the whole hiring process. We’ve been advertising salary ranges for a few years, right, Laura? Laura (13:57.308) Yes, yes, we have, but part of our company-wide idea that we want to be as transparent as possible. Courtney (14:04.297) Well, what’s interesting about this city law is who’s going to enforce it. What are those efforts? Are they actually going to go after these folks? It’s an interesting idea, sure, but what’s the enforcement even look like? Chris Quinn (14:04.451) Lisa (14:08.429) You’re right. Chris Quinn (14:16.366) Yeah, that’s a good point, Courtney, because they can barely enforce, you know, housing code. You’re listening to Today in Ohio. Reporter Rich Exner took a deeper dive into a subject we’ve been talking about the potential for gridlock at the airport if the Browns build a covered stadium in Brook Park. What’s the upshot? Laura (14:21.88) Hehehe, lead. Laura (14:38.484) There could be major traffic problems there are already if you’re racing to the airport and it’s a confusing area. I mean, there’s not like one exit that everybody uses for the airport. It depends where you’re coming from. If you’re driving on I-71 or 480, you could get up Snow Road on 71, 480. There’s 237 directly into the airport. But the airport’s been talking about this wanting to fix it already. But the thing is they’re building a new tournament. terminal they want to so that’s really not on their radar anytime soon so if we’re going to put a new giant stadium in a whole development here we need to figure this out and the Browns commissioned a study they identified how to move as many as a hundred thousand people in and out of the area on game days and that likely means reworking the snow road exit on I-71 adjusting a traffic flow along Engle and Brook Park roads. Well, Chris Rene, the county executive, he says we need a lot more specifics and a lot more study. He wants to look at other key access points to the stadium, like the 480 exits at Graton Road and at West 150th Street. I also don’t know how this is going to be paid for. The Browns say that the stadium financing plan would bring in plenty of extra money to help with infrastructure. And they’ve put the price tag somewhere around 80 million dollars. That would be no new interchange, but redoing some ramps and a ring road and widening and some pedestrian improvements. Chris Quinn (16:06.394) Chris Quinn (16:10.522) Yeah, we’re not going to rely on the Browns to do a transportation study that affects how we get to the airport. This is just not going to happen. We did do have an editorial today that gives tacit approval to the Burke Park plan with a bunch of conditions. And one of them is we have a true state and regional study of transportation out there. Come up with the fix for that whole airport nonsense and charge the Haslams for whatever their portion of that is. They didn’t create. Laura (16:12.532) Yeah, I agree. Chris Quinn (16:39.578) the traffic nightmare that exists out there, but this stadium would exacerbate it. I’ve never seen anything quite like it. Getting into that airport is awful because of that. The way 237 merges with 480 traffic. So there are people coming off of 480 to get on 337. There are people on 237 trying to get into the airport. They’re all in the same lane looking left and right, hoping not to crash. It’s just stupid. And on holidays traffic backs up on both roads in a dangerous way. We should finally fix that. And if the Brown Stadium plan forces a study like that, that would be good for everybody. Rich did a nice job laying out all the issues. Laura (17:21.62) I agree. mean, ODOT should be studying this, right? NOACA should have a role in this. This should not just be the Browns say we need an extra lane here because that is not going to solve the problem. And I agree, there have been times I’m driving on 480 or 71 that I think it’s 71 where it splits off to 480 and 237 and I’m in the wrong lane and end up on a highway I don’t want to be on. And I’ve been driving those roads for decades, right? So if you have someone who doesn’t know the area, I think they’d be totally confused. Chris Quinn (17:28.261) Laura (17:50.974) The Browns say, hey, we’re in a really good spot here. There’s actually a lot of access points, and we don’t think this will be that hard. I think they’re completely downplaying the complexity of this. Chris Quinn (17:57.562) Ha ha ha ha. Chris Quinn (18:01.818) Right, if you’re trying to get out of Cleveland through the airport on a game day, you might not make your flight. It’s just, we have to think about, if this goes, we have to think about this holistically and really solve the nightmare that already exists out at that airport. Laura (18:19.838) Well, and we need to look at mass transit because it is dumb if every person who goes to a Browns game is driving in their own car. Because I know the Haslams want to make money on parking. That’s of their plan. But that is not good for the environment or the roads or anyone else. So there is an RTA station about a mile from there. They they want to talk about how they could get people from one place to the other. So I hope mass transit is an integral part of this plan and that it makes it not only easy, but You know, affordable and sort of enjoyable that you could make it part of your thing. I mean, the crew in Columbus, which is another Haslam owned team, they all walk down the street together to the game. Right. So maybe we could get something like that going on for the Browns. Chris Quinn (19:06.342) There’s nowhere to walk from. It’s in the middle. It’s in the middle of nowhere, man. There’s nothing to walk from. You’re listening to Today in Ohio. The Cleveland Federal Reserve Bank released a report on how the Trump tariffs likely will play out in the Northeast Ohio economy. It’s not great, Courtney. Lisa (19:06.545) Or people who go to Fenway. Yeah, right. Right. Courtney (19:25.223) Yeah, and according to the Fed’s most recent report, which came out on April 22nd, employers in the regional economy are already starting to see the beginning of this. Reporter Molly Walsh talked to an economist over there and she said spring is usually kind of a big growth time of year. And she said we’re already seeing weaker than expected growth this spring. So not off to a great start that way. But when they actually like surveyed and talked to businesses across the region they cover, which includes Ohio, Western Pennsylvania, Northern West Virginia, and Eastern Kentucky, these more than a hundred or so survey responses show that businesses are already trying to figure out what they’re going to do amid all this uncertainty and the potential tariffs, which have been changing left and right every day the last several weeks. But nearly two thirds of the folks who were surveyed of the tariffs are going impact their businesses. And of that group, 85 % anticipate higher costs for the inputs that they need to do whatever they do there, any products that they’re bringing in from overseas. And three quarters of the folks who were expecting tariffs to hit their businesses, they said they plan to raise prices to offset it. And 60 % of that group expect demand to soften. On the good side of this, I suppose most do not expect to have an impact on their employment, on their workforces. But a lot of folks, according to this survey, say that they’re going to look to pass cost increases onto consumers. Another group of them said that they’re looking for new domestic suppliers, which I would imagine President Trump would want that to be the result of this, but only about 30 % of folks said that that’s the tack they’re going to take. Chris Quinn (21:15.418) Look, we’re going to see it any day now. The supply chains are broken. The shelves are going to be empty. And I don’t understand how they think that won’t affect employment. We had this happen during the pandemic, not intentionally, but the supply chains got broken. Employers could not make their products and do what they do. And we had some of the highest unemployment for a while there we’ve ever seen. If you look at what the economists are saying, they’re saying we’re going to see the empty shelves imminently. this week, next week, it’s coming. I was talking to Lisa yesterday and she’s been reading stories about how ports across the country are vacant, empty. Nothing is there to be unloaded. We will feel this and I don’t understand how people can say it won’t affect employment. Courtney (22:01.447) You know one of the big companies that fall in the Cleveland feds you know service area is proctoring proctoring gamble down in Cincinnati you know they have a million products that folks use every day they said they’re looking at at hiking prices to offset these costs so that’ll ripple out to the whole country and that’s a good example here at home of what this is going to do and and and talking to the economist we were also told that northeast Ohio companies with our historic manufacturing base up here They’re concerned about their ability to compete, especially like I mentioned before, those inputs are all going to cost more for them. Chris Quinn (22:40.348) Okay, you’re listening to Today in Ohio. The first cruise ship of the season arrived in Cleveland Tuesday. Laura, what’s the prediction for cruise traffic this season? Laura (22:50.228) It’s really good. We’re looking at a record 55 ports of call for Cleveland, which is really big. started I was looking back at my old stories when I covered Wee Carey for our kind of sister site, Rock the Lake in 2017 was the first cruise ships we had in 2019. We had about 20 stops and now we’re seeing 55. This is a big leap from last year even because the Victory Cruise Line. had a one year hiatus from the Great Lakes and that’s who makes up the biggest chunk of this traffic. So every time they dock, and we had the first one yesterday, about nearly 200 people come, they get off the ship, they get to take an excursion, whether they’re going down to Amish country or the national park or the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and they spend money, an average of $150 each time. So 10,000 passengers over the cruising season, that adds up. And it’s just... Cool, when I’ve talked to people about it, they think Cleveland is this really cool destination they weren’t expecting. And in some of these cruise ships, we rank second in the favorite destinations only to Mackinac Island. And we cannot compare to Mackinac, okay, with the horse truck carriages in the Grand Hotel. Chris Quinn (24:04.57) I bet people who go to the rock call are shocked by the price of those tickets though. mean, that would account for most of that $150 alone. Laura (24:09.044) Well, these cruises are not cheap. mean, they are thousands and thousands of dollars for a week or 10 days. So the people who are on these ships can’t afford that sticker shock of a price. Chris Quinn (24:23.834) Yeah, maybe it’s a shockingly high price to go to the Rock Hall. You’re listening to Today in Ohio. Let’s update our Browns news from yesterday. The Browns blasted the report from Mike the Wine’s office that is critical of the Browns projections for revenue from their proposed stadium in Brook Park. Courtney, what are some of the key points? Courtney (24:45.609) Yeah, the Browns with this chance to push back against the blistering memo from Ohio’s budget director, you know, really criticized her conclusions here called some of them outright inaccurate. Now, in their rebuttal, though, like some of the claims the Browns made, I don’t know if it was just me, but like, they cracked me up. Some of these claims are ought to be scrutinized, right? So what this revolves around is you know, largely the house is proposing the state take out 600 million in debt to cover a good portion of the 2.4 billion stadium plans. And the team claims that new state tax revenues generated by the stadium and development would more than cover the state’s debt here. So the Browns are saying, you know, you’re getting bang for your buck out of this investment. You’ll get to overturn on investment that more than covers the cost of it, right? But the budget director She’s kind of basically calling hogwash around some of these numbers. She wrote that the Browns plan inappropriately overstates projected sales and income tax revenue. And she accused the team of over-inflating the positive impacts of this development. Now the Browns are claiming that this would result in 5,000 new jobs. And the state budget director says, No, it’ll be about more like 1500 and most of them would be retail jobs. And she also says that the construction numbers here are wildly overblown. The Browns are claiming that they’ll use nearly as many construction workers as the Intel project down by Columbus, but the budget director points out the Intel project is 10 times the size. So that’s not really squaring for her. As far as As far as the income taxes that would be generated here, the state budget director points out that about one fifth of the total economic impact that the Browns are claiming this would generate, $3 billion worth, would come from income tax on the players themselves and other team personnel. So that’s not really new income tax revenue for Ohio. It’s not, it’s existing money. So there’s just a bunch of holes here. Courtney (27:00.753) Now the Browns did take aim at some of her assertions. She claims that these Browns bonds that the state would issue would not be tax exempt and it would cost the state an additional $200 million beyond what the Browns say it would cost taxpayers. The Browns say, no, that’s inaccurate. They would be tax exempt. I’m really curious where the dividing line is there. There’s some kind of difference that we don’t understand why she’s saying one thing and they’re saying the other. That’s 200 mil to state taxpayers. Chris Quinn (27:32.26) Yeah. And we got to remember that this report came from like the wine’s office and he’s dead set opposed to the borrowing. He wants to build stadiums with extra taxes on sports betting companies. So there’s a question about the veracity of what that report says. I should say before we leave the Browns that there was some late news yesterday. Chris Ronane sent a letter to the legislature saying I’d like to get $350 million. Courtney (27:51.688) Chris Quinn (28:01.616) to renovate the Lakefront Stadium. We’ll have to talk about this again another day. It’s odd that Justin Bibb’s name was not on that letter because the city owns that stadium. The county has no ownership of it. And for Ronane to just ask money for something he doesn’t own without Bibb cosigning the letter doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. It’s something we need to explore. You’re listening to Today in Ohio. Lisa, I never heard of the subject of this next story, but depending on when you left Cleveland for Texas, maybe you did. What was the front row theater? What made it special? And why are we talking about it today? Lisa (28:40.142) Yeah, the Front Row Theater was kind of not on my horizon, but I’m pretty sure my parents went because this was in Highland Heights. It was right off of 271 in Wilson Mills. It opened in 1974 and closed in 1993. So I went to college a year after it opened and then went to Texas a few years after that. But the Front Row Theater is a subject of a new book. called As the Stage Turned, a Front Row Memoir. And it’s written by Jeanne Emser-Schultz, who was a long time marketing and publicity person for the Front Row Theater. And she was also a former writer and columnist for The Plain Dealer. She said there were so many stories from those years that she wanted to capture. And there were so many stories that she couldn’t even fit into this book, including many legendary performances. Their inaugural night on 1974 with Sammy Davis Jr. He got a death threat in the middle of his set. The final concert in 1993 was Luther Vandross. In between, lots of legendary performers. It was the first area appearance by Ziggy Marley in the wake of his father, Bob Marley’s death. Roy Orbison died two days after his performance at front row and that was his last venue. Frank Sinatra demanded to stay in the founders, Shaker Heights mansion as a condition to perform at front row theater. We also saw Cheech and Chong, Cher, B.B. King was a regular, Michael Stanley band, Tom Jones, Tony Bennett and list goes on. yeah, this was, and some of the performers got a little bit of vertigo because the way the front row worked, it was a circular theater. The stage was in the middle and it rotated very slowly. So everybody got a good view of their performance, but some entertainers got a little bit of vertigo from that. Chris Quinn (30:22.492) I was so surprised by this. I’d never heard of it. And the fact that it’s the final concert of Roy Orbison is just so interesting that that happened in kind of the middle of nowhere. I’ve been to that thing a million times because now it’s a Home Depot where I’ve bought no end of home products. But what an interesting piece of history that I don’t know how many people knew about. Laura, you grew up down in Summit County. Did you ever hear of it? Lisa (30:31.244) Lisa (30:39.214) You’re right. Laura (30:51.944) I never heard of it. Of course, my theater going was limited to Akron, like to the E.J. Thomas Hall and the small weathervane theater. So, no, my parents thought Cleveland was like a completely different country. Chris Quinn (31:04.923) Okay, you’re listening to Today in Ohio. That does it for the Wednesday episode. Before I go, I should say I made an error earlier this week when I said that the Sheriff’s Office didn’t have a chase policy. It does have a chase policy. It just does not match up to Cleveland’s. And when the two deputies engaged in that chase at 100 miles an hour that killed two people, they were not adhering to the Cleveland policy. That’s it for today in Ohio. Thanks Lisa, Lauren, Courtney. We’ll be back tomorrow talking about the news.