CLEVELAND, Ohio - Is it a good idea for the Browns to build a new covered stadium in Brook Park? Cleveland.com and the Plain Dealer endorsed the plan -- with caveats. We’re talking about why. 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: We know about smart parking meters. We know about parking apps. But what is the new technology that will use artificial intelligence to keep track of my parking if I go to the Cuyahoga County administration building to conduct business, like get a dog license or pay a tax bill? Here’s one that should worry anyone with a small pet. Why are Westlake police warning pet owners to be outside when their pets are? Why are Cleveland Hopkins International airport officials still optimistic about 2025 after a quarter that saw traffic drop compared to last year? The state’s largest police union has come up with a compromise for having police employers shore up the pension for police and firefighters. What is it? Millennia is that controversial company that owns a ton of substandard public housing across the nation, as well as some of Cleveland’s most iconic places, like the Marble Room. You might remember that the owner’s Northeast Ohio home was raided as part of an investigation, leading Millennia to sue HUD. What did a federal judge do with that lawsuit? Let’s talk about some good old-fashioned municipal gossip. Cleveland Heights has been beset by bickering between its first strong mayor and a city council that wants to have the power. But when former Akron Mayor Dan Horrigan quite as city manager after a couple of months, it raised real questions about the mayor’s performance. What’s the latest ugly bit to come from all the controversy? We had lots of talk early in the week about revenue and tax projections being way off when it comes to paying off public loans for a proposed Browns stadium. What do lawmakers who have been asked to approve the borrowing have to say about the projections? Speaking of the Browns, our Editorial Board this week endorsed the proposal to build a stadium in Brook Park with conditions. Three of the board members are on this podcast, so let’s talk about the thinking behind the endorsement: Lastly, tonight sees the opening of Cleveland’s first new live music venue in years. What is it. Where is it. Who owns it. And what is the opening act? 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 (00:00.918) It’s time to wrap up a week of news. It’s Today in Ohio, the news podcast discussion from cleveland.com and the plane dealer. I’m Chris Quinn here with Leila Atassi, Lisa Garvin, and Laura Johnston. Leila, we know about smart parking meters. We know about parking apps. But what is the new technology that will use artificial intelligence to keep track of my parking if I go to the Cuyahoga County Administration Building, you know, to conduct business like get a dog license or pay a tax bill? Leila (00:30.297) Yeah, that’s a great question. This is a step beyond the typical smart meter or parking app. Starting Thursday, if you park at the 900 Prospect Avenue garage next to the Cuyahoga County Administration Building, you won’t need to pull a ticket or swipe a card. Instead, the garage now run by a company called Metropolis Technologies will use AI-powered cameras to scan your license plate when you drive in. It’ll track how long you stay and it automatically charge you when you leave. But the catch is that you do need to download this Metropolis app ahead of time and set up an account with your plate number and a credit card. Without that, you’re kind of out of luck. The system doesn’t accept cash or cards on site. So if you’re heading to a county council meeting and hoping for free parking like before, you’ll still get it. But only if you scan a special QR code inside council chambers with the app. Council President Dale Miller emphasized that the county doesn’t run the garage. So this is the only way to get validation on parking now. It’s part of this broader trend. Metropolis is rolling out this technology at garages all over downtown. But for now, if you’re doing business at the county building, you’ll want to come prepared with your phone and that app and your license plate number saved. Chris Quinn (01:45.738) I’ve used that garage a good bit over the years and this does sound like it will make it smoother for when people are getting out of there after a game or something that you won’t have to sit there and wait for the credit cards to go in and out. So it’ll lead to efficiency. But I can tell you, my poor late father would have hated this because they’d be tracking your actions. They’re going to know where you are at all times. I worry about things like this when there’s a mistake. Leila (01:54.682) Leila (02:04.44) Lisa (02:07.991) Chris Quinn (02:11.862) If the camera glitches out as you’re leaving and then the bill comes and it’s for days of parking instead of an hour parking, how easy is it to appeal? Because when all this automation is there, you have a hard time reaching a call center. It sounds like it’s a great, a great step in efficiency. I would love to not have to stop, get a ticket and on the way out, stop, punch the credit card in. This sounds wonderful to me, but how do you deal with errors? Leila (02:11.951) Leila (02:28.654) Leila (02:40.216) Right. It definitely sounds very convenient. No fumbling for tickets, no waiting at a kiosk. Just park and handle your business and go. But it does raise a fair question. By linking your license plate to a credit card and essentially leaving an open tab with a private company, how secure is that information too? I mean, what protections are in place to prevent overcharges or data breaches or misuse of your location data? It’s definitely a frictionless system, but one that asks for a lot of trust. Chris Quinn (03:09.482) I’m a big believer in easy pass. I use it all the time, but it glitched out recently. didn’t record me leaving the turnpike or something. I got, but it took a picture of my plate. So I got a bill and I’ve got a bill. thinking, what, what’s going on? And it was honest. They, they didn’t record the easy pass leaving. So they just sent me a bill for the period that I was on the turnpike, but these things do break. They do glitch out. And so I just hope. Leila (03:35.886) Chris Quinn (03:38.976) there’s some method. I would love to see the county council insist on that so that people who are visiting don’t get troubled. You’re listening to Today in Ohio. Here’s one that should worry anyone with a small pet. Why are Westlake police warning pet owners to be outside when their pets are, Laura? Laura (03:58.476) because of coyotes. So in the last week, officers received two reports of animals dying when they were attacked in backyards. In both cases, the owners were not with their pets and neither yard was fenced in. So one resident saw a coyote attack the family dog and another incident they let three dogs out, but only two returned. So this is scary if you have a small dog. The police say they’re not seeing more coyote activity than normal. They’re regularly in the metro parks nearby, but You have to take the precautions. So you need to keep your dog on a leash. You need to be with your dog. Chris Quinn (04:32.552) I can’t imagine how heartbreaking that would be though, that you let your dogs out and two come in and you believe a coyote took the one away and killed it. You’d be beset. That’s striking. The weird thing in the story was that if you have a fence, coyotes can jump a fence, but they’re less likely to jump the fence. And so they’re recommending people have fenced yards. I wouldn’t have thought that would stop a coyote at all, that they’d leap the fence and still attack the dog. Scary stuff though. Laura (04:52.632) Laura (05:01.462) Yeah, it is scary. I mean, it’s it’s horrible to lose a pet in any way, shape or form, but that’s a pretty traumatic way. And so they say if you see a coyote, you’re supposed to act really big, which I feel like is the same advice as when you see a bear and and don’t turn your back to them. You can look as big as possible and make loud noises. So, you know, we talk all the time about deer and how they proliferate in our suburban area. So the coyote population has been pretty stable for the last 10 to 15 years. They’ve been present statewide since 1988. I have to say, I’ve never seen one. I’ve seen foxes. I see deer almost every day. I have never seen a coyote that I know of. Lisa (05:35.325) I was going say, I’ve never. Chris Quinn (05:43.73) I have. Yeah, I’ve seen them multiple times. I’ve seen them in Lakeview Cemetery, even some big ones. But again, generally wildlife keeps their distance. If they’re running in the backyards to take away dogs and cats, just a... It seems like it’s something that we should do a better job of controlling, but evidently not. You’re listening to Today in Ohio. Laura (05:50.382) Lisa (06:08.171) Chris Quinn (06:08.758) Lisa, why are Cleveland Hopkins International Airport officials still optimistic about 2025 after a first quarter that saw traffic drop compared to last year? Lisa (06:18.823) Yeah, but that drop was pretty tiny. through the first quarter of this year, Hopkins saw 2.23 million passengers go through its airport, but that’s down less than 1 % from last year at this time. January was a pretty good year, a pretty good month. It was up 1.4%. February, though, for some reason, travel plummeted 4 % that might be, you know, Trump getting into office and making all these EOs and planes crashing and burning up. But in March, they were back up again by 1%. So through the first quarter, we’ve seen 884,566 passengers. Airport officials say, we still think we’re going to have a good 2025 and we think we’re going to be up 3 % from last year by the end of this year. Last year saw 10.17 million people pass through Hopkins. That was the most since 2008. But then this is summer too. A lot of airlines are expanding their routes at Hopkins. Air Canada is resuming their Toronto nonstop service. Frontier Airlines is adding Boston and Nashville to their destinations later this month. And then Aer Lingus has increased their flights to Dublin and we’ll probably see other airlines do some summer routes. Chris Quinn (07:29.974) On the other hand, the economy is teetering and I think people are being a little more careful about their vacation spending. So it’s nice that they’re still predicting it, but I think there are a lot of factors yet to play out that could change what they’re predicting. You’re listening to Today in Ohio. The state’s largest police union has come up with a compromise for having police employers shore up the pension fund for cops and firefighters. Laura, what is their solution? Lisa (07:35.543) Laura (07:58.69) So the idea is that they couldn’t get this passed last year, it got stalled in the Senate. So they want to stabilize the pension funds financing without overwhelming the municipal budgets or affecting their retirees benefits. So this is the Fraternal Order of Police. They want the Ohio Police and Fire Pension Board to be able to increase or lower employer rates by up to 5, sorry, So a half a percent every three years. They say this is a more flexible solution. Then what they tried last year, they wanted to raise contributions by 4.5 % over six years. So obviously they’re talking a lot smaller increase now. The Ohio Mayor’s Alliance opposes this. They say it’s going to cost the city’s money and it was giving powers to a board that doesn’t include any municipal budget representatives because that board includes current and retired first responders along with financial experts. Sounds a lot like the argument we talked about yesterday with STRS, the state teacher’s retirement, about who’s on their board. for that one, but there is going to be reform coming for all the public pension systems, at least in the way of a bill that’s going to be proposed this fall. So some people are saying, hey, let’s just deal with all of these at once rather than piecemeal make decisions just willy nilly. Chris Quinn (09:14.12) Yeah, I would think more of this compromise if the police union put in some contributions from the employees as well as the employer, but putting the entire onus onto the cities doesn’t seem quite fair. It seems like there ought to be some kind of equitable connection there because the cops are the ones and the firefighters are the ones who benefit from this thing. Laura (09:37.27) Yeah, the board is saying, hey, our 57,000 members absorbed more than $3.2 billion in benefit reductions. That includes a higher retirement age, cuts to the cost of living, and the loss of group health insurance. They said, we keep absorbing all of this, but the municipalities haven’t increased their share in nearly 40 years. So it does seem like it’s something to take a look at, but it’s And this is a compromise, but do you have to make the decision now if there’s going to be some reform coming in less than a year? Chris Quinn (10:08.926) Yeah, that’s a good point. You’re listening to Today in Ohio. Millennia is that controversial company that owns a ton of substandard public housing across the nation, as well as some of Cleveland’s most iconic places like the Marble Room. You might remember that the owner’s Northeast Ohio home was raided as part of a federal investigation, leading Millennia to sue the federal government. Lisa, what did a judge do with that lawsuit this week? Lisa (10:38.167) Well, federal judge Dan Polster rejected Millennia’s argument that their cases should be decided by a jury and that administrative law judges are usurping judicial power by using an internal process to impose fines. the Cleveland-based Millennia Housing Management sued HUD. They challenged $7 million in penalties levied against them. Polster says, look, you signed an agreement with HUD that detailed the proceedings that are taking place. And they also have other remedies other than a jury trial. They can appeal the HUD fines or they can go to the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals. As we know, Millennia’s owner, Frank Sinitta’s home in Waite Hill was raided by the FBI last year. They filed this lawsuit against HUD after that. But there are many lawsuits against millennia for terrible condition of their properties. And there’s an ongoing investigation into $4.9 million in missing or misappropriated federal funds. Chris Quinn (11:42.708) We talked about the lawsuit Millenia filed when they filed it and we questioned it at the time. Is this just defense that’s an offense? Instead of fighting what the government’s doing to you, you go on the offense and say the government’s all wrong. But the record’s pretty clear. This company is not doing good things in public housing. It’s causing a lot of suffering and it hasn’t done its job. I suspect that in the end, they’re going to lose a lot of their holdings. It’s just odd because while they own all the substandard public housing, they own these beautiful buildings downtown and they continue to be controversial. Lisa (12:20.971) Right. Right. Like Key Tower and so on and so forth. And they’re one of the largest owners in the nation of federally subsidized low income housing. So yeah, and I found it interesting that they said, you know, this lawsuit was unconstitutional and this should be decided by a jury. And it’s like, Chris Quinn (12:41.526) Well, what I liked about Polster’s ruling, he said, you signed a document at the front end of this that said you would go through the HUD process. That’s what you have to do. You can’t just negate what your contract says, which is what they were trying to do. It would be interesting to see what their next step is. Nothing came of the raid of his house. There’s been no follow-up criminal charges, but the federal investigations move slowly. You’re listening to Today in Ohio. Lisa (12:49.515) Lisa (13:00.556) Chris Quinn (13:09.686) All right, let’s talk about some good old fashioned municipal gossip. Cleveland Heights has been beset by bickering before between its first strong mayor and a city council that clearly wants to have the power. But when former mayor of Akron, Dan Hargan quit as the Cleveland Heights city manager after just a couple of months, it raised real questions about what is going on with the mayor. What’s the latest ugly bit to come from all the controversy? Leila (13:37.538) man, it’s a doozy, Chris. This latest chapter in the Cleveland Heights saga involves Mayor Khalil Siren’s wife, Natalie McDaniel, and an expletive-filled meltdown in City Hall that triggered a workplace complaint, two resignations, and now a full-blown political mess, really. So here’s what happened. A city employee named Andrea Heim emailed HR back in March, saying that she felt unsafe after McDaniel stormed down the mayor’s wing yelling profanities, not at anyone directly, but loud enough to rattle the staff. It sounded as if she had been kicked out of a meeting that she wasn’t supposed to be sitting in on because she’s not a City Hall employee. Himes said this wasn’t a one-time outburst either. She described a pattern of disruptive behavior over several months. And Himes packed up and left the building that day saying she wouldn’t come back until McDaniel, who holds no official role at City Hall, was barred from the premises. Instead of barring McDaniel though, Sarand put Haim on paid leave. He said it wasn’t disciplinary, just a move to protect the safety of people at City Hall and Haim then resigned not long after that. And the silence from the administration on why McDaniel has access to secure areas has only fueled the fire. Meanwhile, city council is fuming. They’re holding special meetings. They’re talking about legislation to prevent non-employees from having security badges and even considering hiring. an outside HR firm to investigate the workplace environment under Soren. All of this comes just months before the city’s next mayoral election, which is only the second since Cleveland Heights ditched its council manager system in favor of an elected executive. yeah, what started as a power struggle between the mayor and council is now swirling with concerns about nepotism and workplace safety and who is really calling the shots in City Hall. Chris Quinn (15:28.948) Yeah, and let’s be clear, when we say profanity, she was using the F word over and over and over again. I mean, this was bad. And what’s what’s odd about this is Horrigan, who was a huge catch. I he is one of the most esteemed public officials in Northeast Ohio. And when he comes into Cleveland as the city manager, everybody thought, wow, this is going to move us forward. When he hears of this, he sends a note to the mayor. And according to everything we’ve seen, the mayor ignores him. Leila (15:32.484) The F word. Yeah. Chris Quinn (15:56.352) So then Horrigan says, I’m gonna work from home. You need to address this. Still nothing. And then Horrigan quits. What was really sad is the city council, which seems so focused on trying to get back the power that the voters gave to the strong mayor, had a meeting after all this happened to get to the bottom of it. And then they did nothing. The mayor started out by saying, what Horrigan said isn’t true. It’s not what you think it is. And we’re investigating. And then all of the council people were just lame instead of saying, get out of town, dude. It’s time for you to resign when your wife is doing things like this. There’s no way this guy remains mayor after his first term. If he runs again, the whole town is talking about it. But this gets back to something you and I were talking about earlier in the week, the dearth of municipal leadership. Lisa (16:38.859) Chris Quinn (16:48.274) It used to be that people would run for these jobs because they wanted to make a difference for their community. It wasn’t about them. It was about the community. But what you see here is a bunch of people that just trying to one up each other and it’s about them. And how do we get back to it? You mentioned you had a friend that was thinking of running and she realized that because she wasn’t part of the political machinery, she had no way in. which is ridiculous on a municipal level, right? That’s one where you go door to door and say, hey, I’d like to make the place better. But there’s no leadership here. This is just a city baron of one adult in the room. And you see that over and over and over again anymore. Leila (17:16.122) Leila (17:32.686) Right. And I’m really disappointed in how this has played out in Cleveland Heights. I Khalil Soren is a pretty sharp, thoughtful person. And you would have thought that he’s someone who clearly has the intellect and some policy background to drive some progress in Cleveland Heights. And when voters chose to shift to that strong mayor form of government, they were really signaling a desire for more accountable, visionary leadership, someone who could break through the inertia. and bring economic momentum to Cleveland Heights. And Sorin, I think, had the potential to be that person. But instead of ushering in a new era of competence and credibility, his first term has been consumed by dysfunction and distractions. And the promise of this new government structure is being squandered on ego and missteps and palace drama. And he’s not doing anything to help matters, and neither is counsel. Chris Quinn (18:25.908) Chris Quinn (18:30.794) Right, he’s a smart guy. All of what you said is true, but I think what’s missing is he doesn’t understand what leadership is. Leadership is figuring out a way past these conflicts with the goal of making the city better. And you’re not getting it from him and the council. If the council thinks that he’s just a bozo that’s hard to work with, you come up with a strategy, you come up with some goals that you’d like to attain, and then you figure out a way to get there. Somehow you overcome these personal conflicts, but instead they seem like they’re reveling in these personal conflicts. And meanwhile, the city goes nowhere. There hasn’t been a single big idea out of this government since it started. And that’s why people went with it. It’s sad. It’s really sad because Cleveland Heights is, I live here. It’s a special community. But where we stand right now is a disaster. And they’re about to put charter changes on the ballot, the council is, that I think will only give them more power. in it against what the voters hoped for with a strong mayor. It’s just it’s so ugly for the mayor’s wife to be going up and down a hallway screaming profanities. How does that? I mean, it just it’s mind boggling that in the minute, Oregon reached out to say we’ve got a problem that should have been the four alarm fire. The mayor should have been immediately with Oregon. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. Let me fix this. Lisa (19:42.321) And carrying his badge. She was photographed carrying his access badge. Chris Quinn (19:58.398) Make sure his wife stays out of City Hall because she’s not elected. And instead, nothing. I mean, just you see, you don’t understand it. Nobody believes the mayor because everybody respects Oregon. So when you put these two on a balance scale, Oregon gets all the credibility, the Cleveland Heights mayor gets none. And that’s the problem he’s facing. Leila (20:19.374) To your point about the dearth of leadership and the skills it requires to be a good leader, those are exceedingly rare. And I don’t know that it’s more so now than ever before, but I mean, you know that from being in the community and just in your work on a daily basis. It’s so hard to find that combination of skills and people. And unfortunately, I mean, those people are all deployed in the private sector. They’re not looking for... know, public sector leadership positions. Chris Quinn (20:52.052) Well, it used to be if you wanted to serve your community post-World War II, a whole lot of people felt devoted to their communities. If you wanted to serve your community, you’d go door to door and you’d introduce yourself and you talk about your ideas. And that’s how people would get to know you today because of all of the anonymous and non-anonymous attacks on social media. It’s not just introducing yourself. It’s people see you out and about and speculate on what you’re buying at the grocery store and There’s so many vicious attacks on social media that I think people that would like to serve don’t want to deal with that. They just don’t want to deal with how ugly and vicious this stuff gets. And so what we’re left with is megalomaniac personalities that get in there and just try and make it about them. All they need is to go in with some goals and then do the right thing, right? It’s fairly simple, but we don’t have it. We don’t have it pretty much anywhere. mean, we’ve seen a lack of leadership in a bunch of quarters on the Brown Stadium issue. It’s just been an ugly time for Northeast Ohio. When I write about this in the columns, I hear from hordes and hordes of Northeast Ohioans who agree and are desperate for somebody to rise up and be a decent leader, kind of in the style of a John Glenn or George Voynovich. We haven’t seen the likes of that in a long time. You’re listening to Today in Ohio. We had lots of talk early in the week about revenue and tax projections being way off when it comes to paying off public loans for a proposed Brown Stadium. Laura, what do lawmakers who’ve been asked to approve the borrowing have to say about the projections? Laura (22:30.008) They’re not worried. No problems here. Why would we worry about sensibly shielding public dollars and doing our homework and making sure the math works out? Because this will be fine. These are two memos we’ve talked about the question, the Brown’s assurances that the state will be able to repay the debt with state tax revenue generated from this $2.4 billion stadium and the surrounding mixed use development. And there’s disputes on how many people would visit the new stadium, how many non football events we’re talking about. how many jobs the project would create. But Senate President Ron McCauley, and remember the budget goes to the Senate next. The House has already passed its version of the budget and it’s saying, okay, we’ll give these bonds that we need. The governor wanted to do it through taxing sports betting companies, but the House went along with the Haslam plan. And now the Senate, there’s some idea that they might be able to have that sports betting tax and use it to bond out. But Senate President Ron McCauley said, The Browns put forward those numbers. They’re not putting forward numbers they grabbed out of a hat. They’ve hired professionals on their side too. I mean, there’s no scrutiny here. That’s just saying, well, I’m sure the Browns did their homework, so they’re professionals. It should be fine. And Matt Huffman said he hasn’t read them. Now, Matt Huffman is the head of the House, so he’s not voting on this right now. But he said he was comfortable with the vote that he took in the House to pass the bond plan. Like, no worries. I don’t even need to look at it. Chris Quinn (23:55.764) I think all of it becomes moot when they go with the sports betting tax. None of those projections will matter on the state side because the money will be funded by the sports betting tax, which is pretty much guaranteed. And I think they’re not saying that because they don’t want to telegraph where they’re at. But I think that’s what they know. We don’t need to debate this because when this budget is done, we won’t even be talking about these projections anymore because of where the money’s coming from. Laura (24:22.722) Well, fine, but it would be nice to have your public representative, the people who are supposed to be looking out for taxpayers saying, hey, we’re going to take a good hard look at these numbers and ask them some tough questions. Chris Quinn (24:34.55) Yeah, but they’re all secretive. mean, the problem with the legislature is they’re secretive all the time. If they said, look, we expect we’re going to do the sports betting tax. So these projections don’t matter. Then that would be a good answer. Right. But they don’t say that they just they waffle and say, yeah, we’re not that worried about. We’ll see. And there were some problems with I think some of those projections. I think there are some problems with the critiques on the projections. But in the end, I don’t think it’s going to matter. You’re listening to Today in Ohio. Speaking of the Browns, our editorial board this week endorsed the proposal to build the stadium in Brook Park, but with conditions. Three of the board members are on this podcast, so why not? Let’s talk about the thinking behind the endorsement. Layla, you started off. Leila (25:18.124) So here’s how we approach this. We know emotions are running high around the Brown Stadium, and for good reason. People are still burned by the Deshaun Watson trade, and there’s deepest trust of the Haslums. That frustration has shaped a lot of the public outcry, especially around the idea of giving billionaires any public help at all. But as an editorial board, our job is to look past that noise and assess the deal on its merits. Now that we finally have most of the details, we felt it was time to weigh in. So we don’t love the location. Of course, we’d probably much rather see a stadium stay downtown where the infrastructure and energy already exists. But Brook Park doesn’t feel like a destination beyond football games or maybe a few concerts. But when you zoom out, this is actually a very different kind of stadium proposal than we’ve seen in the past. The Haslums are putting in $1.2 billion of their own money, a bigger private investment than Sherwin-Williams is putting into its headquarters. And the public money being asked for, it’s not just a handout. It’s structured as loans to be paid back largely from taxes generated by the project. We still think the revenue projections are a bit too rosy, which is why we’re setting conditions for our support as an editorial board. First, we want the legislature to stop trying to sell bonds backed by taxpayer risk and instead fund the state’s share with the tax increase on sports betting companies. That’s a win-win. The betting companies contribute. taxpayers don’t get dinged and it stabilizes stadium funding statewide. We also call for long-term maintenance funding baked into the tax revenue so we don’t repeat the gateway mess where taxpayers got stuck with renovation bills. And we want the Haslums to backstop the local loans, just like they agreed to do for the state. If they’re confident in the numbers, they should stand behind them fully. And finally, if we’re going to ask fans and travelers to deal with gameday traffic near the airport, We need real investment in fixing the roads around Hopkins so that it’s less of a congestion headache. It’s already a problem and the current $75 million infrastructure estimate isn’t really going to cut it, let’s be honest. So at the end of the day, it’s not a perfect deal, but it’s the best stadium proposal we’ve seen in Northeast Ohio in a long time. It asks fans to shoulder the cost, not the broader public. And if the Haslams deliver on their promises, including the 100 million, they say that they would... Leila (27:37.316) put toward the lakefront development, this could be a turning point for the region, but only if the right guardrails are in place. And that’s what we were pushing for as an editorial board. Chris Quinn (27:46.378) What the hardest thing I think to get past is, and we say this in the editorial, that the public really doesn’t like the Haslams. They’ve basically become the level of art modell scorn. And they did it to themselves. And we say that in the editorial. They did it by repeatedly bringing about stinky teams. They really did it with what they did with Deshaun Watson. And so people just can’t see past that, but they should because every other stadium Leila (27:58.617) Chris Quinn (28:15.072) deal we’ve seen, whether it’s new building or renovation, the taxpayers pay a gigantic part of it. The recent update to the arena was taxpayers paying the bulk of it. Progressive field taxpayers pay the bulk of it. The Hasms have kind of recognized the financial condition of this region and come up with a plan where that doesn’t happen. And you have to respect that. You have to say, wow, this is a change in the funding model. And we like that because You know, you and I won’t be paying for it. It’s mostly users. But man, it is hard for people to see past their distaste for what the Hasms have done. I don’t know how they overcome that. They need a PR machine to, well, they need to fill the good team. That would be a big thing. Leila (29:01.144) That’s what it is. That’s really it. Because I think that that’s the large, that’s the worst of the distaste that they have for them. Lisa (29:07.797) I think the hardest time I had with, cause we all reached a consensus on this after many emails back and forth. just, you know, like I said, their economic development projections are way too rosy. you know, and if it was just a dome stadium, that’s okay, but they wanted to be a lifestyle center. I really don’t think it’s going to create the new jobs. I think it’s going to be poaching from other. areas. It’s in a bad place, know, sandwiched in between an airport and some railroad tracks. I mean, I just, I don’t know, but I was willing to let it go. They want Brook Park. That’s where they’re going to go. They’re going to give us a hundred million dollars. So I’m okay with that, but I still think their projections are way off. Chris Quinn (29:50.536) One thing that we haven’t said because it’s further down the road in the conversation is based on what they did in Columbus, what they build will probably be very nice. The soccer stadium that they built in Columbus, I visited that before it opened. think Lars attended games there. It’s really well done. It’s nothing like the existing Brown Stadium. So whenever they get to go, think... Lisa (30:03.243) Chris Quinn (30:17.204) the fans who go to that stadium, even they’re gonna be gouged, are gonna like the experience there. I think this will probably be a pretty first rate facility. You’re listening to Today in Ohio. Lastly, tonight sees the opening of Cleveland’s first new live music venue in years. And so for that, we turn to Lisa, our music expert. Where is it? Who owns it? And what is the opening act? Lisa (30:42.753) Yeah, it’s called Globe Iron and that’s a nod to the building that it’s opening in tonight on the West Bank of the flats. They’re in the old Globe Ironworks building on the West Bank, just east of the Nautica Entertainment Complex. And that’s, you know, it started out in the 19th century. It was opened in 1853 as a foundry, but it also held several popular dance clubs back in the 1990s. So this is being operated by AEG Presents, which has run the Agora Theater since 2017, and also Jacobs Entertainment, Incorporated, which owns some properties on the flats. This is the first new live music venue in Cleveland in years. It hopes to become a local hub for touring hip hop and electronic dance music, artists and music. Apparently I didn’t know this. There is a strong local dance culture in Cleveland. They also hope to be home to absolute intense wrestling and they’re actually gonna have their first wrestling event at Globe Works, Globe Iron rather, on May 16th. And there are several local, national and international acts planned this summer. I didn’t know this, but one of the most popular clubs in that old building was called Metropolis. It was actually considered the Midwest dance mecca. People actually bussed themselves to Cleveland to go to this club. In its last iteration, it was called the Dream Nightclub and was closed by the city of Cleveland in 2011 for fights, underage drinking, shootings and overcrowding. So I guess it has a storied dance, you know, a storied dance history there. And tonight’s opening act is a local duel called How We Feel. They’re also going to be appearances by groups Sense of Purpose, Ghost Tadic and Erasing Never. Chris Quinn (32:24.69) Interesting that we ending this podcast talking about a nightclub that was named Metropolis when we started the podcast talking about a parking app called Metropolis. That’s it for the Friday edition of Today in Ohio. Thanks, Leila. Thanks, Lisa. Thanks, Laura. Thank you for being here. We’ll return Monday talking about the news.