Cleveland’s new approach to getting dirt bike riders off the streets: Today in Ohio
CLEVELAND, Ohio — Cleveland Mayor Justin Bibb is changing the city’s response to illegal off-road vehicles. The department, in a coordinated effort with the Ohio State Highway Patrol, conducted its first major raid in years.
City Council on Monday fast-tracked and unanimously approved various law changes to crack down on dirt bikers. We’re talking about the new philosophy on Today in Ohio.
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:
How is Cleveland radically changing its approach to dealing with dirt bike and bike life riders?
Could Cleveland be the place where science figures out how to detect lead in water pipes without digging them up?
Who in Ohio made Russia’s list of people who are banned for life from traveling there?
What happened to the influential group of people that Cleveland Mayor Justin Bibb said he had assembled to help him figure out how to spend the big federal stimulus windfall?
How are some civic organizations trying to make downtown Cleveland’s main parks and open spaces better used?
What’s the penalty for the people who cut down and stole a 200-year-old walnut tree from the Metroparks.
We’ve got new presidents at Cleveland’s three major colleges, and reporter Bob Higgs talked to them to see if they have plans to collaborate. They don’t always. Will these three?
How did yet another political leader in Greater Cleveland get into trouble for stealing, this time through the use of the dark web?
We’ve been saying for a while that it seems like everyone has Covid. Has health officials finally caught on?
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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] It’s a sad day in Cuyahoga county. One of the last great public servants of our age past yesterday, bill a Han. He was really a giant of public service, probably affected more people than anybody else that’s come through the government ranks in the past 40 years. It’s today in Ohio, the news podcast discussion from cleveland.com and the plain dealer.
I’m Chris Quinn. I am here with Lisa Garvin, Layla, a Tasi and Laura Johnston. Layla, I think you covered the bill, Denny Han and one of his latter iterations.
Leila: Yeah. Yeah. When I was, uh, uh, the Cleveland city hall reporter, we crossed paths in this was toward the tail end of his career, uh, with the Adams board.
I think he retired back in 2017 and, uh, I, I really did not realize until I saw Caitlin story just. How many other titles he held in his career? My goodness. I mean, his career spanned so much public service. And [00:01:00] Chris, I mean, you, you cross paths with him in your, in your reporting career too, as when he was public safety director for the city of
Chris: code.
Yeah. When I got to town 26 years ago, he was public safety director under Mike White, you know, We tangled with him a few times, as you always do with city hall over records and things, but, but you always got the sense one, he’s a very smart guy, too. He cared about what he was doing. He wasn’t venal to, to just jerk around reporters.
There was a purpose to what he did and as. To him. And his later iterations really respected him because he just kept taking on. It was like Tom Hayes. It’s just one of those guys that takes on thankless task, children and family services running. That may be the worst job in public service because you’re trying to save children’s lives and you can’t possibly be a hundred percent successful.
It’s a hard thing, but he was dedicated to the kids and then he takes on the [00:02:00] Adam’s board. Thankless tasks dealing with addiction and mental health services. I just, he just kept doing it and you’d bump into him from time to time. I think the last time I saw him was at Cleveland rising. So here he is 80, you know, 82 years old.
Um, you know, I think he was walking with a cane and he comes to this gathering aimed at pointing Cleveland in the future when he had had so much to do with the, the past, just the special. Yeah.
Leila: You know, yesterday when we got the news and Caitlin was putting the story together, I was looking through old stories about him and came across a, uh, Cleveland magazine profile of him.
And there was this quote that really struck me where he said, you know, the accolades are nice and everything, but each day you wake up and you get to do it all over again. You know, the day starts new and you think to yourself, What, what can I do now to, to, you know, to serve the people? And it kind of, I mean, it really struck me and I felt that’s something that we can all carry [00:03:00] forward.
There
Chris: was no BS to that. You know, so many people get into government service today to enrich themselves or for the power, whatever it was not what he did. The sad thing is everybody knows. Knows he painted and was quite a, quite a good painter. I mean, reporters have been going to his house to see his paintings for years.
And he was finally going to have an exhibit that opens this week. I think it’s a CSU. And I was talking to Chris Ronayne who had visited with him a month or six weeks ago, shortly before you had his heart attack. But ultimately I think took his life and he was very, very excited that finally his artwork was going to be exhibited and he won’t be there to see it.
Um, we’ll be gathering, uh, uh, perspective from lots of people that dealt with him for a month. More FullStory than we published last night, we got a story up just that he died, but we’ll be talking to people. So check out cleveland.com and the plain dealer in the days ahead for more about this very special man, [00:04:00] let’s begin.
How is Cleveland radically changing its approach to dealing with dirt bike and bike life riders, Layla, it’s amazing. You covered the last iteration of the city’s approach to this, and this is just a wholesale change.
Leila: I know, I mean, once upon a time, this, uh, so-called bike life movement had an ally at city hall, you know, former mayor, Frank Jackson had the soft spot for the dirt bike riders because his grandson, Frank Q was, was one of them.
So rather than, than further criminalize their hobby Jackson sought to draw them in. He invited a contingent of writers to city hall. It started discussing plans to build a dirt bike track that would take riders off the street, where a lot of folks had, had found them to be somewhat menacing and intrusive and, and he wanted to give them a place to do their thing and maybe even learn a trade in dirt bike repair, but then that plan fell apart because the site was too close to residential area.
And there was just a lot of problem. That. But, you know, even with that plan table, Jackson seemed inclined to want to go easy on the dirt bike riders [00:05:00] and on his watch, police never really gave chase because that seemed pointless and dangerous to the bystanding public. And you know, that however frustrated a lot of Clevelanders who felt like the city had given up control to these riders, who they saw as really completely lawless.
So recently, Justin bib has signaled through safety director. Carrie Howard, that changes to that softer policy would be a foot though. They wouldn’t give any details. And then over this past weekend, they launched operation wheels down Cleveland, which turned out to be this joint effort among Cleveland police, the Kygo county Sheriff’s office and the Ohio state highway patrol.
To round up these scofflaws, they seized 15 non street legal vehicles, including two stolen ATVs. 15 people were arrested for felonies and 30 more received citations. Authorities also sees two firearms. It turns out that the way they went about doing this was actually to, to, uh, approach them before they had even.
[00:06:00] Writing, which, which was interesting. So instead of chasing, which I think they did chase a little bit, but they actually did some, you know, Intel work and discovered where they were going to be meeting and then just sort of ambush them. So that’s how they did it.
Chris: That’s a lot smarter. I mean, I appreciated the comments by, by blink Griffin and others.
The, the chasing for what they’re doing, isn’t worth it. Although I think two people did get injured, but using intelligence to, to cut it off before it begins, that’s a great way to attack it. And then there was a, uh, uh, paragraph and Adam pheresis story that said, As part of the search warrant, they collected information that will help them identify future of these.
They’re seizing the vehicles and making it much harder for people to claim them. If they’re not street legal, they can’t get them back. And none of these are street legal. So it’ll reduce the supply of that. Uh, it’s just a much smarter way to go. There is a danger though. Anytime you go in and people have these things, [00:07:00] if they take off, you know, if they go skittering across somebody’s front lawn, where there’s a, five-year-old playing out front, you could have a big tragedy.
And if that happens, there will be hell to pay for the bib administration.
Leila: Right. Right. That’s always the case. And, um, but then. Part two on Tuesday city council cracked down under bikes with this ordinance that boosts fines for, for riding unregistered dirt bikes in the city to $500 for the first offense and a thousand dollars for any subsequent offenses, which is significantly higher than the current fines, which run between $50 and a hundred.
The ordinance also targets noise with a thousand dollar fine. Blocking intersections with dirt. Bikes is a new first degree. Misdemeanor and penalties are increased for bikes that aren’t properly equipped with the right lights, brakes, or mufflers. So this is sort of a two-prong thing coming at them with this new way of approaching them on the streets with law enforcement and then also hitting them with this, these tougher penalties.
So the interesting thing [00:08:00] to me, um, in the reporting here, Uh, the change of heart from Blaine Griffin, who was a part of mayor Jackson’s administration, when they were crafting this approach, the softer approach to the bike life movement, trying to bring these folks to the table, offering them a place to, to practice and to ride.
And then all of a sudden this about face, this tougher approach. You know, Adam and Courtney both talked to, they talk to, to blame yesterday and asked, you know, why, why are you having this change of heart? And it really boiled down to, it seems that these writers are becoming more aggressive in, in the public that they are.
They’re not. Um, it’s not so much that they just want to ride. They’re just, they are, they are a little more medicine.
Chris: I’m proud of the flag on that. I’m not buying that people said back when Jackson was working with them, that they were medicine and I’ve [00:09:00] seen them. I mean, they, they they’re doing the same thing.
I’m not buying that, but, but there may be more of them and people are upset about them. There’s a couple of things with the legislation. Are worth talking about, I mean, the part of the legislation, that’s going to make it harder for them to get their bikes back is smart because it reduces the supply bikes and these things are valuable.
The part where you raise the fines. Well, what’s the point. I mean, th these are people that probably can’t pay the hundred dollars easily, and now you make it a thousand. It gets into all of that justice reform stuff. We’ve talked about. You put them into. They, they get in front of the court. They can never get out.
Then when they don’t pay their fines, there’s warrants issued for them and they, they, it destroys their lives. What’s the point of that? I mean, if the real goal is reducing this, take the bikes away, take the bikes away, cite them, give them the minor fine. But it seems like you’re trying to put them into court.
Hell.
Leila: No, I don’t [00:10:00] know. I would agree. Maybe the, the, maybe the, uh, maybe this is where the, the, uh, you know, the threat of the financial burden is it might be enough to
Chris: Lisa. You were going to say
Lisa: something. No, I was just in agreement with you, Chris. I mean, you know, I always reading the story this morning or Blaine, Griffin says they’re terrifying, old men and old ladies.
They’re here in, gone in an instant. I mean, you know, I’ve driven down superior and had packs of bikes, you know, just go right by me. And I’m like, Hey, look at that wheelie. I mean, I don’t know. I, I I’m throwing the flag to on more aggressive behavior too. I don’t believe that.
Leila: So do you guys think that Blaine Griffin back when he worked for Jackson?
I was just kind of going along with, with, you know, Jackson’s feelings on the matter, because Jackson had such a soft spot. Well,
Chris: maybe, but I also think that, you know, there are many people expect blink Griffin may run for mayor in the next go [00:11:00] round and you’ve got big playing hard line with these guys. He campaigned against it.
There will not be lawlessness in the streets. So if Griffin wants to be the guy that’s soft and fuzzy with. Then there’s a contrast that I don’t think he wants to have a look. The behavior is not there. The one thing that’s different is the Dodge chargers that do donuts in the middle of the intersection.
But that’s not what we’re talking about here. That’s a, that’s a completely new trend involving stolen cars. Interesting stuff. The, uh, the, the, the whole dirt bike bike life culture is fascinating. Uh, very active on social media. I do think it’s odd. We’re not talking about the bicyclist because they tie up the roads too, I guess, I guess blame would say they’re not Madison, right?
Lisa: Cause they’re not young and black.
Chris: Yeah, exactly. All right. You’re listening to today in Ohio, could Cleveland be the place where science figures out? How did the tech lead in water pipes without digging them up? Lisa? I would’ve thought we’d have done this by now. [00:12:00] Landers on them on Mars. We’ve walked on the moon.
You know, we’ve created computers that can do amazing things and video games that look like real world. Although we are a civilization where a big part of our population believes the last election was solid. So maybe we’re not that smart after all. This
Lisa: is really interesting. Uh, the Cleveland division of water and other Ohio utilities, along with the Cleveland water Alliance is challenging innovators to develop ways to test lead pipes without having to dig them up, because that’s the way you have to do it right now.
And that can be very expensive. So what they did was they built a water pipe farm in Parma Heights to use for research and testing of new, uh, innovations. It’s a mini system. It’s got pipes made of various materials, led copper and steel, and then. Over with various materials, like dirt, gravel, and cement, and so forth to simulate real world conditions.
So they issue this challenge last year, but COVID kind of got in the way and the participants didn’t have any prototypes that were ready for testing. [00:13:00] They just had concepts. So this time around, they’re going to widen the field a little bit. They hope to assist in. In taking their concept to the testing phase, possibly with financial grants.
So this could be a real big money saver, Cleveland water estimates, that there are about 180,000, mostly residential lines that are potentially led. And they think that may be 60,000 of them are, have been replaced, but they’re not sure to excavate these would cost $700 a piece. I would add up to over 125 million most.
Suspected led pipes are in Cleveland and in the inner ring suburbs. So this, this test farm could be used not only for local efforts, but there’s like a national group that’s going to come in and use it as well.
Chris: It just seems odd. This is a basic physics problem. It’s an. Complicated math or anything. And I, I was in reading this story.
I was fascinated. Cause it’s like, we should have solved this a long time ago. This shouldn’t [00:14:00] be that complicated, but evidently it is, they said they’ve tried what? They tried to play with the sound of the pipes and they tried electro something or other electric resistance. Yeah, and it’s so it’s very vexing, but I, it just, it throws me that this is the challenge it is.
And it’ll be very cool if Cleveland is the place that solves this problem for the
Lisa: world. Well, and I think that you have to show that it is a problem. I mean, innovators are always looking for problems to solve and perhaps they didn’t really think of this as a problem until it was called to their attention.
So now they’re challenging people to come up with.
Chris: I’m betting that whatever the solution is, it’s going to be a slap your head. Simple. Like why didn’t we think of that earlier solution? Uh, stay tuned. We’ll keep following this. As different groups tried different theories of how to do it. It’s today in Ohio.
Hey Laura, who in Ohio made Russia’s list of people who are banned for life from traveling there? I wish I were.
Laura: [00:15:00] Basically every nationally federal elected official in Ohio is on this list. There’s 20 Ohio politicians, primarily the current and former lawmakers. Um, basically anybody who’s in the congressional delegation and the total list is nearly a thousand people that has all sorts of politicians, uh, journalists, business executives, not every us president is on it, but basically anybody who’s spoken against.
Chris: I was surprised Jim Jordan made the list. You know, Donald, Trump’s not on the list. He’s a big Confederate of Donald Trump’s and I would figure that Russia might want to welcome him, but he’s on the list.
Laura: Yes, he is as well as like mark Zuckerberg, three dead senators, um, secretary of state, Pete booted, um, Anthony Blinken, Pete Buddha get and, uh, Lloyd Austin, Hillary Clinton also on the list, but, uh, yeah, I guess they were not going to be visiting Russia anytime soon.
I’m
Chris: sure that Sherrod brown and Rob Portman are very upset about this
Laura: and they talk [00:16:00] about, um, what did they call it? Um, just basically that they have Russia phobia, like, so I guess they’re coining a new term.
Chris: You’re listening to today in Ohio. What happened to the influential group of people that Cleveland mayor, Justin bibs said he was assembling to help them figure out how to spend the big federal stimulus windfall, like, well, we thought this was a stupid idea when it was proposed.
It’s good that it’s going on. Oh,
Leila: I was going to say, this sounded like one of those really awesome, innovative thinking outside the box, just in big ideas, but fairly apparently it was a little too outside the box for city council because all of a sudden. Quietly disappeared. So two months ago, bib announced the creation of what he was calling the center for economic recovery.
Uh, this, this, this was a city hall based agency that was supposed to largely be staffed by non-city employees. Who’s paychecks would be [00:17:00] funded by philanthropic foundations, nonprofits, or other outside organizations. And they would be experts who could help guide the city toward the highest and best uses for the half.
A billion dollar windfall in American rescue plan act funding that the city has received. Then. Last week when bib announced all those sweeping priorities for how he’d like to see the city spend the money. The news release mentioned again, the center for economic recovery, but then the description of who would serve on that panel of outside experts.
It’s suddenly like only included members of his cabinet. What the heck happened? It didn’t explain that it just, you know, just changed. So stimulus watch reporter Lucas to probably found that bib had proposed legislation to city council pitching this idea, but it had no city council sponsors, which is a bad sign.
The legislation. To administrative review and hasn’t been considered at another city council meetings since according to council records, another bad sign city [00:18:00] council, president blink, Griffin told Lucas that was because council is really protective over that money. And doesn’t want to be perceived as, as handing over control to some group of outsiders.
And so that’s kind of where it’s. Stands Lucas got some time to actually talk to the mayor himself last week. And when he asked bib about how his office had communicated his idea to council about the intentions of the center for economic recovery Bev kind of gave this cryptic response. He was like, well, you know, originally we thought, you know, we’d run a joint process with city council.
But after further conversations with the council president, I guess we’re going to do a separate process and blue, blue blood. And I guess we’re not going, gonna do,
Chris: can I take a minute just to say how much I like the work Lucas is doing on stimulus swatch. We’ve hired a whole bunch of people in the past couple of years that are just great.
Doing stimulus watch he’s got a million good ideas, you know, add him to the others. We’ve hired. We just hired three more word, full staff. People want to work for us, but man, he has [00:19:00] hit the ground running. They, the problem with this was. You’re elected to make these decisions. And, you know, it’s this isn’t participatory budgeting where you set aside money and bring in regular people to help you decide to get them interested in government.
This was bringing in all the people that already decided everything in this town and saying, Hey, help us spend the money. I’m glad city council bristled at that. It’s like, why do you elect city council and the mayor, if not. Decisions like this, are they so unimaginative that they can’t come up with ideas on how to spend $500 million?
Okay.
Leila: Yes. The answer to that question is just, I don’t think I need to remind you about how it went when they all tried to do that. And they spent months having these like powwows, where they would just get together and try to come up with ideas. And they were thought they were going to come up with ideas that were separate from what Frank Jackson was proposing.
And then they both basically were [00:20:00] like, you know, yeah. What he said. So they are unimaginative.
Chris: Maybe we should replace them and get people that know what the community needs, but I
Leila: didn’t think it was a terrible idea to have some expert. Ron
Chris: Richard, in that crowd, that’s
Leila: not necessary. The
Chris: Cleveland foundation, it was all these, it was all
Leila: these.
Do you think Justin Bev would, uh, put Ron Richard
Chris: off somebody from the Cleveland
Leila: fence? Smart millennial, man, he’s not going to
Chris: put the Cleveland foundation has its own billions. They, they like, they, they have decisions to make on spending. You don’t need to bring them in to start. It’s a
Leila: bit has surrounded himself with lots of bright, young minds.
He is. Yeah, that’s true. But he wants, he wants more. He wants the experts. So I wasn’t totally opposed to this idea. And, and these aren’t the ones who are making the decision city councils, making medicines. [00:21:00] These are just ideas. What’s wrong with ideas? I didn’t think this was a terrible idea. I agree with you.
I disagree with it. Well
Chris: disagree. I apparently city council agrees with me though, and it ain’t happening. You are listening to today in Ohio. How are some civic organizations trying to make downtown Cleveland’s main parks in open spaces, better used Lisa, another fascinating story by Stephen.
Lisa: The Cleveland foundation, destination Cleveland, and the greater Cleveland partnership are getting together to find out how to capitalize on eight major downtown public spaces.
A lot of these spaces have been upgraded over the years. They were well used during the 2016 GOP convention and other things, the NFL draft, but they’re not used all the time. A lot of times the mall sit empty and, and other areas. So they want to figure out how to. Centralize the management and planning and permitting of all these spaces, because there, you have to go to different places to [00:22:00] do these things, to get permits.
And, uh, you know, it’s, it’s just kind of, uh, it’s it’s I can’t think of the word it’s an onus. Um, so what they’re doing is yesterday they launched an online survey to determine what the public wants and needs for these eight downtown parks and plazas, which include north coast Harbor, public square, all the.
Perc Plaza 12th and Chester settlers landing canal basin park, the star Plaza, Playhouse square, also known as U S bank Plaza and the Cleveland public library, Eastman reading garden. And like I said, most of these have undergone significant renovations and are just waiting to be used. So they’ve also hired Cleveland.
Strategy design partners and city planning consultant, August Fluker. And they’ll be looking at these things. They’ll be looking at best practices and other cities like Detroit, Philadelphia, and Cincinnati, and come up with proposals by fall. And then again, I said, there’s a public survey where people can weigh in and say what they think they, the spaces should be used [00:23:00] for and how you can ease the requirements to use these space.
Chris: What a delightful idea, what a good approach to go out and really say, okay, we’ve got these great open spaces. We’ve invested a lot of money in them. Downtown is becoming more of a residential area, probably more so as offices get converted as they fall into disuse because people are working from home.
So how to serve, how to make those serve, to build more of a, a community center. I hope there’s a big focus on downtown residents as they do.
Lisa: Yeah. And I, you know, every time I go downtown, I noticed more people were obviously living downtown cause they’re walking dogs or jogging or whatever. They also have a working group of 30 public officials that would be chewing over this, uh, the survey results and other input that they get throughout the.
Chris: I’ll never forget. The first time I saw somebody walking a dog downtown, it was like 15, 18 years ago. And it was the first time cause nobody lived down there now you see them all the time. It’s a very good evolution to downtown. You’re listening to [00:24:00] today in Ohio. What’s the penalty for the people who cut down and stole a 200 year old Walnut tree from the Metroparks Laura.
This was a huge international story. The lumber in that tree is worth a fortune and you just can’t replace a 200 year old.
Leila: No,
Laura: you can’t. Even if you pay a little bit of money, it’s not going to bring the tree back. So Todd Jones, he’s 57 from bay village and Laurel Hoffman. She’s 54 of Elyria. They agreed to repay the Metro parks $20,000 as part of their plea Deere deal.
Judge Timothy McCormick ordered them. Six months in the jail, the county jail, but he suspended the sentence so they don’t have to serve jail time. What they did is they, they, they say it wasn’t malicious. They thought that the tree belonged to them. They sold it to a geode county sawmill for only $2,000.
And the parks. The tree was worth about 28,000 and it costs them more than $100,000 to clean up the area because of the mess the tree left behind. It’s just [00:25:00] like, you know, you got to shake your head. This makes no
Chris: sense. I wish I could get my hands on so that well not I’m finishing, making a chair at a Walnut that has knots in it.
And to get something that’s 200 years old, if they’re going to do that, I wonder what happened to it. They probably cut it into particle board. So shame and it really it’s, uh, it’s sad for people like visiting the parks. You don’t have many, 200 year old trees out there. Although we did learn when this happened, that they have a census of those trees, uh, because they are keeping track of them.
That’s, that’s how they knew what had happened.
Laura: Yeah. And this is, was in the Millstream run reservation in Strongsville. So apparently it was seven feet from their property, but. They say, they always thought it was theirs and they had no ill intent, but you got to think what were, what were they thinking?
They just, they had that
Chris: greed and they probably don’t realize I just have valuable and rare. It is it’s today in Ohio, we’ve got new presidents at Cleveland’s three major colleges and reporter Bob Higgs talked to [00:26:00] them to see if they have plans to collaborate. They don’t always Layla will these.
Leila: Well, they say, they say, so the three regions, biggest higher ed institutions recently named these new presidents, Eric Kaler joined case Western reserve university.
Last July, Laura Bloomberg became president of CSU on April 26th. Then Michael Bastien is currently the president of Rocklin community college and suffer New York. And he’s going to become the next president at Tricy on July 1st. And Bob Higgs learned that the three of them are not only really excited about their career.
Intersecting and Cleveland simultaneously and all the great opportunities for collaboration, but, but they’re also really excited about the turnover and leadership in general, in Cleveland and the opportunities that creates for partnerships and innovation from United way to the greater Cleveland partnership to the hospital systems.
You know, they say that with new leaders in, in all these new, these organizations that are fresh ideas for collaboration and for finding ways to [00:27:00] enhance that pipeline from academia into the workforce. So Kaylor and Bloomberg already knew one another from their overlapping time at the university of Minnesota, where Kaylor was president from 2011 to 2019 and fluke Bloomberg was a Dean for eight years.
They told Bob that they’ve already been discussing among the three of them. How best to streamline the pipeline of students between academic institutions. So transfers are more seamless and non degree seeking students find their place. But really interesting is the role that they say they hope to play within the burgeoning tech industry, especially as Intel brings its giant manufacturing complex outside of Columbus already case has signed an agreement with Lorraine county community college to work with Intel on the project.
And case would do research and development work while LCC would train technicians, Kaler expects that he could ink a similar agreement with Tricy. So there that [00:28:00] I found that that was really fascinating part of the story I was, uh, I think there was. There’s a lot of potential there. So, um, we’ll see. Right.
I’m a
Chris: little skeptical though,
Lisa: because of
Leila: history. I know you were like, Ooh, bloody dog, rose colored
Chris: glasses. I just think that, you know, but look, let’s face it case and see us. You have a law schools, right. And CSU graduates get better scores. Graduates do I, and that’s going to continue to be an issue. I look, I hope they collaborate and I hope they work with the hospitals.
And I hope we work with the government leaders. Um, they haven’t always, and one of the things we’re really lacking in Cleveland and Ohio, well, mainly Cleveland, we don’t work to keep the graduates. I mean, Columbus does Columbus has a program where they try and get people graduate from Ohio state to stay.
Philadelphia has a program. You see it in cities elsewhere. We’re not doing it. The collaboration between the colleges and businesses doesn’t mean. To try and keep these brains [00:29:00] here. So we have all these smart people come into town. They spend a few years there, they get their degree and leave. And that hurts us.
If we don’t figure out a way to keep them, like other cities are doing, maybe Intel will be the path for that. We’ll we’ll see. Yeah. All right. You’re listening to today in Ohio. We’re not going to get to our last two stories. That’s always a good sign, robust conversations, squeezes out some stories. We’ll get to them tomorrow.
Thanks Lisa. Thanks Layla. Thanks Laura. I think this is it for you this, this week, right lately.
Leila: Yeah, I think so. I’m going to take a couple of days off or, or not, or not. You might hear me Thursday, Friday. We’ll see.
Chris: We’ll see. Thanks everybody who listened to the podcast, come back tomorrow. Whether it Layla comes back or not.
