CLEVELAND, Ohio - On a wall in the office of U.S. Rep. Dave Taylor, the stripes of an American flag were twisted into a Nazi swastika.

Republicans are denouncing the hate symbol. We’re talking about it, in the light of publicly released Young Republicans’ hate speech, on Today in Ohio.

Listen online here.

Editor Chris Quinn hosts our daily half-hour news podcast, with editorial board member Lisa Garvin, impact editor Leila Atassi and content director Laura Johnston.

You’ve been sending Chris lots of thoughts and suggestions on our from-the-newsroom text account, in which he shares what we’re thinking about at cleveland.com. You can sign up here: https://joinsubtext.com/chrisquinn.

Here’s what we’re asking about today:

How did a swastika end up hanging in the office of a U.S. Congressman?

With a Franklin County judge making sure intoxicating hemp stays on shelves, is House Speaker changing his timeline to pass laws to regulate the stuff?

The controversy of the Ideastream takeover of a beloved student radio station from Cleveland State University is growing. And the story keeps getting stranger. What did CSU get in return for booting the students out and letting Ideastream turn it into a jazz station?

Do Ohio drivers understand the law when they come upon flashing emergency lights for police or highway workers on state roads? Accident statistics seem to say no. How bad has it been this year?

We rail against the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio regularly for failing to protect consumers, always seeming to favor the utilities. But when it comes to natural gas rates this season, the PUCO did us all a solid. How so?

Is City Council President Blaine Griffin seriously overstepping his authority in trying to stop the law director from dismissing city lawsuits against the Cleveland Browns?

Do we need to send Cuyahoga County’s Common Pleas judges back to judge school? What basic rule have they now broken twice in short order that is bringing defendants back to them to address their guilty pleas?

President Donald Trump’s much-ridiculed health chief has taken aim at seed oils, arguing you should use animal fat and butter instead. How crazy do Cleveland dieticians say that advice is?

We talked last week about the Cleveland city planner getting charged with felony theft, accused of filing false paperwork to get paid leave she did not deserve. Now, all charged have been dropped. What happened?

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

Chris Quinn (00:01.455)

It just boggles my mind that we’re talking about Nazis in 2025, but we keep talking about Nazis in 2025 because we have a country that has gone down that road. And Nazis are the first story up on Today in Ohio, the news podcast discussion from cleveland.com and the Plain Dealer. I’m Chris Quinn here with Leila Tassi, Lisa Garvin and Laura Johnston. Laura, how did a swastika end up hanging in the office of a US congressman?

Laura (00:31.288)

That is a very good question. And the congressman himself wants to know, this is Taylor from the south part of the state, but the Capitol police are on the case, he said. Well, only once the government shutdown is over anyway. So it doesn’t sound like this is a real investigation, but this was his image posted online on Wednesday, showed this US flag behind a low level staffer in the zoom call. And you could see that the

Lisa Garvin (00:49.171)

But this is an image posted online of last night. It shows this US flag behind a low-left staffer in a hall. And you can see that this is a...

Laura (00:58.562)

the red and white lines of the US flag in the middle had been twisted to create the shape of the Nazi symbol. And somebody shot that and screenshot it and put it on Twitter and was like, what is up with this? And this Claremont County Republican claimed in a statement that it was office vandalism. I’ve seen the picture, it’s pinned to a billboard. It does not look like somebody came in and graffitied swastikas all over the place.

Chris Quinn (01:23.061)

No, no, I and there’s no way you would miss it. If you went into that office, it jumps off at you. Look, the thing is, pretending like I’m shocked, shocked would work, except that the Republican Party is going down the road of the Nazis. There was there’s a huge buzz this week because a bunch of Republicans, millennials and younger have been in a chat room for the past year and a half saying racist things and praising Nazis. I just don’t get it of all.

Laura (01:27.682)

Mm-hmm.

Laura (01:42.126)

Mm-hmm.

Chris Quinn (01:52.068)

the regimes to want to emulate in the history of this planet. You pick the worst one you may as well just partner with Satan, but they are praising it. We have ice becoming Trump’s version of Hitler’s SS. It’s exactly what it’s doing. It’s starting to severe Americans. It’s intimidating Americans. This is what the SS did. The Congress enabled the creation of this thing, gave them tons of money and it’s now a military force that is

Laura (02:05.294)

Mm-hmm.

Chris Quinn (02:19.145)

squeezing American lives in an unprecedented way. So to say, I’m shocked, I’m shocked that this is in my office. Really? Are you?

Laura (02:28.482)

Well, exactly. I’m actually surprised that they’re doing all the shock and awe type of thing. Like Bernie Marino is saying that Dave Taylor is a very, very good man who would never approve of a swastika in his office. Let’s be clear, this is a low level staffer, but it’s in the congressman’s office. Like you would have to know it’s there. It’s right behind him. It’s not hidden behind a door or something like that. So that seems like BS to me. And you’re right. And in a world where Chicagoans are getting tear gassed because they’re watching ICE agents try to like

you know, storm the streets. This does feel like like a change. And we have the young Republicans talking about Nazis and saying they love Hitler and J.D. Vance, good old Ohioan, saying they’re just kids and they’re edgy jokes. It’s like, no, they’re 25 to 40 years old. Those are not kids. And it’s not an edgy joke. It’s it’s the absolute worst humanity that’s ever been.

Chris Quinn (03:09.315)

Defending it. Defending them. Yeah. Yeah.

Chris Quinn (03:22.765)

He actually said, I’m not going to clutch my pearls over this. They are saluting Nazis saying some of the most racist stuff that you can imagine. We’re not going to repeat it. It’s so awful. And these are people working in government. It’s just gross. I mean, this should be condemned in every way possible. It is not what America stands for. And yet the vice president, an Ohioan, God forbid,

Laura (03:25.805)

Right.

Laura (03:37.142)

Right, some of them are actually representatives, some of them are elected.

Chris Quinn (03:49.089)

is defending it saying it’s okay, it’s just college kids in a chat. We’re in a bad place, man. got the government storm troopers marching. We got a swastika in a congressman’s office. We have Republican young people across the country in a chat room saying horrendous things. When does an elected official stand up and say, stop, this is not who we are, stop it?

Laura (04:13.462)

I don’t know. really, it just seems like Donald Trump just keeps gaining power. Nobody who even voted for, I mean, not nobody. We got the no kings protest this weekend. We’ll see what happens with that. People are standing up to him, but it doesn’t feel like members have his own party, which is the people you really need standing up in this case are pushing back.

Chris Quinn (04:35.501)

The governor of Texas is sending the National Guard to intimidate the no-kings rallies in Texas. That’s the way Republicans are responding to the exercise of free speech. You’re listening to Today in Ohio. With the Franklin County judge making sure intoxicating hemp stays on shelves is the House Speaker, Matt Huffman, changing his timeline to pass laws to regulate this stuff, Lisa.

Laura (04:41.867)

Ugh.

Lisa Garvin (04:59.269)

No, Speaker Huffman says there’s no urgency to pass an intoxicating hemp bill, Senate Bill 86, which has not had any action in the House. And this is despite Franklin County Judge Carl Avini’s temporary TRO that’s blocking Dewine’s 90-day ban on sales of intoxicating hemp. Huffman did say that the executive order issued by Dewine did jumpstart conversations, but says that uncertainty remains after

the ruling, the TRO, which will last 14 days, he says it muddied the water. But he also took a shot at the marijuana statute. He says it’s difficult to sort through cannabis laws that were made by initiated statute. was poorly drafted. It didn’t go through the hearing and amendment process like typical laws. And he also pointed to a federal law that legalized industrial hemp that left a loophole in a regulation gap that allowed intoxicating hemp.

know, products to slip through and be sold at gas stations. So Huffman says that the lawmakers fall into three groups on marijuana as a whole. He says, you know, one group supports legalized and regulated marijuana. There’s a group that says hemp laws should be equal or better than recreational pot laws. I would agree with that. He also says he’s in the camp that opposes legalization entirely, but he admits that

Prohibitionists have largely lost on this discussion.

Chris Quinn (06:27.055)

I’ve been trying not to laugh ever since you said Hoffman said that laws should go through the hearing process and be amended because he’s the king of not doing that. He has shoved more important stuff into budget bills without any hearings. So for him to talk about how, you know, we need to be astute and study our laws, throwing the flag, dude, you never do that with important stuff. You avoid discussion. You avoid sunshine.

Leila (06:34.703)

Same.

Lisa Garvin (06:35.773)

Mm-hmm.

Chris Quinn (06:57.091)

The one thing he does say is he’s aiming to get this done by Thanksgiving, which sounds far away, but it’s really little more than a month away, right? It’s November 28th, I think, and here we are, the 17th of October. So it’s really not that far if he lives up to that. I wonder if he said that with a straight face.

Lisa Garvin (07:04.229)

Mm-hmm. 27th, yeah.

Lisa Garvin (07:15.645)

But you know, this bill has been languishing since like the summer. You know, so what’s the delay? Maybe they’re just listening to the, you know, the hemp lobbyists. I don’t know.

Chris Quinn (07:19.608)

Yeah.

Chris Quinn (07:25.781)

Yeah, it’s it’s a sin that they have not acted on this. you know, I’m grateful that Mike DeWine has forced them into it and that they will ultimately do something we suspect. You’re listening to Today in Ohio, the controversy over the idea stream takeover of a beloved student radio station from Cleveland State University just keeps growing.

And the story keeps getting stranger. What did CSU get in return for booting the students out and letting IdeaStream turn it into a jazz station, Leila?

Leila (07:57.335)

you’re not going to believe it. Cleveland State University essentially gave away its student radio station to Ideastream for free. No cash, no trade, nothing of real monetary value changed hands. What CSU got instead was a seat for President Laura Bloomberg on Ideastream’s board of trustees and relief from having to pay for the station’s upkeep, essentially. So Ideastream now runs what used to be that student run, genre diverse.

WCSB as an all jazz station called Jazz Neo broadcasting from the idea center downtown. CSU still technically holds the FCC license, but idea stream handles everything else. The programming, the staff, even repairs. The contract lasts eight years with options to renew and idea stream even gets first dibs if CSU ever decides to sell the station outright. And this is outrageous to people. Students and community DJs are furious that they lost their creative space.

and transparency hasn’t been great around this. Cleveland.com requested records about how this all came together, but CSU’s legal team refused most of them calling it overly broad. But CSU insists students will still have opportunities, internships and class projects at IdeaStream, but the documents don’t say how many or how often. What they do guarantee is about 2,000 on-air mentions over eight years, acknowledging CSU’s partnership with IdeaStream. So basically,

CSU gave away this beloved student radio station for a seat at the table and some free publicity and no maintenance bills.

Chris Quinn (09:32.695)

Okay, several things. That request is not overbroad. Shame on CSU for trying to hide these records. We will sue them for these records. They will pay our legal bills. Laura Broomberg should be ashamed of herself for letting her school say we’re not going to turn over those records. This is the definition of public records. Two, Pete Shakerian, who is on our arts and culture team, worked there at that station for a number of years. We asked him to write a first person reflection on what’s happening there. And he points out

that in several cases elsewhere in the country when this happened, it was reversed because of the protests that are going on. And he wonders whether that might happen here. Ideastream looks terrible here. They look like the big gorilla swinging its club and just bashing in the kids. And that’s not good for an organization that relies on donations. I’ve heard from people who say they’re never going to support them again. Don’t know if they’re supporters or not, but that’s what they’re saying. And

CSU was looking terrible. Laura Bloomberg is building a terrible legacy for herself. This explanation makes no sense. They’re not saying it was deep in the red. They’re not really saying why they wanted to get rid of it. You suspect that what they’re afraid of is Donald Trump. That when you have students running a station, they can say things that Donald Trump might not like and steer his vengeance toward this college because he’s gone after lots of colleges. But

That’s no reason to do it, and they’re certainly not saying that.

Laura (11:03.16)

Well, that’s not where my head went. My head went automatically to the board position that Layla mentioned and also this $1 million gift that they got this fall to expand their jazz initiatives.

Chris Quinn (11:16.089)

Hold on though, when you talk about the board position, this isn’t like a for-profit company where it’s renumerated. Board positions for nonprofits are a drag. They’re a lot of work. There’s no... No...

Laura (11:25.784)

But it pads your resume, I does it look good if you’re trying to get another job? I we all know she tried to leave and go to Minnesota at one point.

Chris Quinn (11:33.761)

Yeah, I know. She’s looked like a carpet bagger since she got here. This just looks bad. They keep looking worse and worse. when they, Laura Bloomberg and the head of Ideastream went on Ideastream two days ago for a show and they, Pete describes it. It’s like corporate doublespeak without ever really addressing what’s going on. Talking about we’re going to give kids some internships at Ideastream. They don’t need the

Laura (11:46.264)

Mm-hmm.

Chris Quinn (12:00.131)

take over the radio station to do that. They could do that anytime they want. They also brought a lot of criticism because they said they never paid interns until the George Floyd case. And after that, they decided to start paying interns. What one has to do with the other, I don’t understand. And most places in America realized long ago that unpaid internships are wrong because you’re just getting free labor. We’ve not done that. We’ve always paid the interns.

Laura (12:04.408)

Mm-hmm.

Leila (12:15.656)

Hmm.

Chris Quinn (12:29.433)

You’re listening to Today in Ohio. Do I hire drivers understand the law when they come upon flashing emergency lights for police or highway workers on our roads? Accident statistics seem to say no Laura. How bad has it been this year?

Laura (12:45.016)

This is much worse than last year and I don’t understand why this is not a new idea that you move over for flashing lights and things on the side of the road. But Ohio Department of Transportation employees, vehicles and equipment have been struck 88 times this year. That surpasses all of last year with 84 and we’ve still got first of all the busy, busy holiday section time of the year and the bad roads. So.

I don’t know what’s up with drivers, but the move over loss is you have to change lanes or reduce speed when approaching a stationary vehicle with flashing lights. We know right overnight, or actually it was Thursday morning, I believe, a state highway patrol trooper was killed when he was assisting a disabled tractor trailer on Ohio 11, south of US 224 in Canfield. So, I mean, these are dire. This isn’t, I mean.

We’ve talked about the snow plows getting hit, which I still don’t understand, but this is not just equipment. These are lives that we are talking about.

Chris Quinn (13:41.261)

I do think that one of the reasons it’s up this year is because we’ve had way more construction this year. We’ve talked about it all year that there’s construction everywhere. But I also don’t know that people understand the law because you’re basically said you have to move over. And I don’t think people realize quite that that means if you’re in the right lane, there’s a flashing light on the shoulder that you’ve got to get into the center lane if at all possible. And if you can’t slow down.

Laura (13:46.4)

It does feel like that, yeah.

Chris Quinn (14:08.311)

I don’t know that that’s clear. When I’m out on the roads, I don’t see a lot of people doing that. And I think they see it and they are careful of it, but I don’t know that they realize they’re required, if possible, to get over.

Laura (14:26.008)

To me, it’s pretty basic. I still remember it from Driver’s Ed, right? Maybe this is why DeWine wants everybody to take Driver’s Ed, but yes. The thing is, a lot of these shoulders are not very big. you’re right, in a construction zone, like right now, driving 90 from my house to go to work, there is no shoulder at all, like zero. There’s not even a grassy median that you could get over on, right? So some areas, if something’s pulled over, like you have to get over.

I just, it’s so sad that these are so avoidable. And since 2020, drivers have stuck state trooper vehicles 65 times. And it is not just distraction, right? Drugs and alcohol played a role in 29 % of crashes. A lot of them are on darker, onlet roads, but there’s still 30 % happening in daylight hours with people who are not under the influence.

Chris Quinn (15:16.911)

I don’t know, maybe they need a campaign that talks about give them a clear lane or something so that people know that they should be a full lane away when they see somebody on the side of the road.

Laura (15:21.272)

Mm-hmm.

Lisa Garvin (15:27.795)

Those electronic billboards do have those messages. Of course they’re not consistent though, that’s the problem. But they do have that message and I can’t remember, it’s very cleverly worded but...

Chris Quinn (15:38.307)

Yeah, I I mean, that’s what I think they need the message is better. And Laura, you’re saying it’s common sense, but I don’t know that people get it.

Laura (15:46.638)

Well, common sense is not so common anymore.

Chris Quinn (15:50.051)

You’re listening to Today in Ohio. We rail against the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio regularly for failing to protect consumers always seeming to favor the utilities. When it comes to natural gas rates this season, Lisa, the PUCO did us all a solid. How?

Lisa Garvin (16:07.539)

Yeah, PUCO regulators rejected a request by Enbridge to increase natural gas rates by an average of $13 a month. This rate hike request was actually initiated in December of 2023 by Dominion. Of course, know, Dominion is now Enbridge because they were bought out. But Enbridge argued that the hike would increase their revenues by $218 million.

But Pucco decided that they should earn about $26 million less per year. And so they declined to reconsider their request for the rate hike. Greater Cleveland residents will see their bills go down by about $2 a month. This will go into effect in November. There will be messaging after November 1st on the Enbridge website about the decrease in rates. So East Ohio Gas has about 1.2 million customers in Ohio. Most of them are residential.

It covers most of Cuyahoga, Geauga, Lake Summit and Portage counties. And there are two parts to your gas bill. There are the distribution charges which go to Enbridge and I think that’s where the rate hike was. And then the supply charges come from the gas supplier, which is different than Enbridge.

Chris Quinn (17:18.787)

This is good news, especially with what’s going on with electric bills. put a question out earlier this week to people, are they seeing big increases in their electric bills? I got 300 plus responses from people pretty much all saying, yeah, they’ve gone up considerably. We’ll have a story about this probably on Monday. So getting some relief on the other side with gas will be helpful. You’re listening to Today in Ohio.

Is Cleveland City Council President Blaine Griffin seriously overstepping his authority and trying to stop the law director from dismissing city lawsuits against the Cleveland Browns over the move to Brook Park? Layla.

Leila (17:56.093)

Yeah, we’ll have a story coming later today on this, but this saga with the Browns is just continuing to unfold. So after Mayor Justin Bibb and the Haslums announced that big deal, the one where Cleveland drops its lawsuits and then gives the Browns the green light to move to Brook Park in exchange for $100 million to the city, Cleveland City Council President Blaine Griffin is trying to hit the brakes a little bit. He sent a letter to all council members saying,

that he has instructed the city’s law director not to dismiss any of those lawsuits until council formally votes to approve the deal through legislation. And Griffin says the law director has an obligation under the city charter to represent both the mayor and the council, not just the administration. And he’s making it clear that council approval is mandatory before any legal action is withdrawn. He also ordered the law director to bring the city’s negotiating team to council at

at 10 a.m. on Monday, so counsel can dig into how this deal came together and what exactly the city is agreeing to give up and get in return. Now, it gets a little murky here because we checked in with a couple legal experts, former law director Sabod Chandra and a law professor, and they don’t quite see eye eye on whether Griffin actually has the authority to make this demand. Chandra says, no, he doesn’t. The law director has the power to move forward without counsel’s approval.

But the professor says Griffin is right. Council should have a formal role before any settlement becomes final. So we’re hashing through all of this, but the legal and political showdown over the Browns deal doesn’t seem to be quite done yet.

Chris Quinn (19:34.723)

Well, Savod was the law director, so I think he knows what he’s talking about. And as I understand it, Griffin doesn’t have that power. Griffin is just one of 17 council members who was chosen to be the leader of that body, but it doesn’t give him any power to tell departments in the city what to do. If somebody sues the council, the law director does have to provide legal counsel, but that doesn’t give the council

the right to initiate lawsuits against parties to the city. That is the mayor’s job. I mean, if Griffin wants that power, he should run because, you know, Bibb is up for reelection this year. I was shocked to see this because if you started to allow the council to push around departments and order them to do things, government wouldn’t work. mean, their job is to do the budgeting, pass the legislation and do oversight with

what the city’s doing, it’s up to the mayor to run the city. And I don’t think he has any power. We were debating yesterday, what does the council or Wednesday, guess, what power does the council have to approve this deal? And I think the only thing they can do is vote to accept the $100 million, right?

Leila (20:49.682)

Yeah, this has been top of mind for us because as soon as that press conference ended where they announced the deal, Sean McDonald asked, okay, what happens next? What’s the next step in getting this across the finish line? And the city did say, well, council has to approve the settlement. But technically, council doesn’t need to do that. Dropping a lawsuit doesn’t require their permission. That’s squarely within the administration’s authority.

But like you said, to accept that $100 million from the Haslums, that’s a different story. Council would absolutely have to approve that money coming into city coffers and decide how it’s used. So in that sense, Griffin’s not wrong to want council involved. It makes sense for them to be part of the conversation. But by trying to block the law director from withdrawing the lawsuits, he’s flexing power in a way that doesn’t really line up with how the city’s legal authority works. To me, it looks more like a political statement, really a way for Griffin to remind the mayor.

that counsel expects to be treated as an equal player in this deal, even if the law doesn’t really quite give them that leverage.

Chris Quinn (21:52.707)

leverage he has is he could stop moving any legislation the mayor submits until the mayor comes over and talks to them about what happened. That’s how the previous council presidents have used that. Okay, you’re not going to deal with us. Nothing’s going to move. You’re going to we’re going to bring the city to a standstill until you come and be accountable. But but he but that doesn’t give him the ability to send correspondence to department heads and tell them what to do. It’s stunning.

A stunning break with past practice. We’ll have to see where Bib goes with it. You’re listening to Today in Ohio. Do we need to send Cuyahoga County’s Common Pleas judges back to judge school? What basic rule have they now broken twice in short order that is bringing defendants back to them to address guilty pleas, Laura?

Laura (22:40.268)

This is pretty basic, but judges failed to properly inform defendants of the ramifications of guilty pleas. So like if you’re going to enter a guilty plea, what it means that you are admitting to this crime and you will be sentenced for whatever the conviction is. And this latest one was Sabrina Molina. She’s 30. She pleaded guilty in June, 2024. I believe in the same day she was supposed to go to trial. Robbery with a firearm.

theft, assault on police officers and a bunch of other offenses sentenced to nine years in prison. But like her, she had an appeal because she was not warned of what that guilty plea would mean. She actually tried to take it back right afterward. And she said she was forced to enter a guilty plea. So the appeals court is sending it back to, to Cuyahoga County. And this happened also with one of the judges we’ve talked about a lot on this podcast.

Kiga County Common Pleas Judge Stephen Gall and a panel threw out a conviction of a Levitsburg man who had pleaded guilty to felony assault and strangulation.

Chris Quinn (23:44.897)

Anybody that’s covered courts in our business knows there’s a basic script when somebody pleads guilty. We’ve all heard it a million times. The judge goes through to make sure, do you understand what this means? Do you understand what this consequence? I mean, it’s mind-numbingly boring after you’ve heard it a hundred times, but it’s a script. I don’t get how a judge doesn’t do it.

Laura (23:51.192)

Mm-hmm.

Laura (24:03.17)

Mm-hmm.

I mean, it’s kind of like the Miranda rights, right? When you’re taking somebody into custody with police, you just say, think they probably read it because you don’t want to be accused of saying it wrong. And it’s like the checklist for surgeons, things that are very basic, but you have to do them because otherwise bad things happen. And maybe they need a checklist on the bench, like right behind the wooden part that just says, did you ask them if they understand what guilty means? I don’t know.

Chris Quinn (24:19.47)

Right.

Chris Quinn (24:34.135)

Yeah, it’s strange that they would not do that. You’re listening to Today in Ohio. President Donald Trump’s much ridiculed health chief has taken aim at seed whales arguing you should use animal fat and butter instead. Lisa, how crazy do Cleveland dietitians tell us that advice is?

Lisa Garvin (24:54.417)

Yeah, so Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., as you said, is urging people to stop cooking with seed oils. He says they cause inflammation, which leads to a whole host of diseases, and he recommends animal fats instead. Tallow, lard, butter, and ghee. He calls them ancestral fats. So we talked to several dieticians in the area. One of them was clinical dietician Lizzie Traxler.

She says, research shows that animal fats increase the risk of heart disease and related conditions. And she says that as a dietician, she emphasizes plant-based oils, especially olive oil, but olive oil is actually a fruit oil, not a seed oil, same with avocado oil. And then she says after that, canola oil and other seed oils like corn, sunflower, and soybean. Cleveland Clinic dietician, Julia Zumpano says that there’s conflicting, you know, these conflicting resum...

recommendations from HHS are very confusing. She says there’s not a lot of data supporting the use of animal fats. She says seed oils are not the enemy, but she did point out that they are in many heavily processed foods. She says anyone without a heart disease risk can use, you know, animal fats in moderation.

but those with cardiovascular disease should avoid them and use extra virgin olive oil or avocado oil instead, she said. And she also added that we don’t need to be frying.

Chris Quinn (26:20.781)

It seems like we’ve got the Marx brothers running our health system. It’s just crazy. The stuff that comes out of there and it’s just made up. They mean that he keeps doing things, getting rid of vaccines. And I thought it was hilarious with all he’s to stop vaccines that Donald Trump got vaccinated for both the flu and for COVID last week. So much for believing in his health director. But this is just crazy to just issue this advice. Lots of people will think it’s legitimate because it’s coming from

Lisa Garvin (26:47.72)

Mm-hmm.

Chris Quinn (26:49.379)

the government and and it it there’s just no thought you see states getting health directors together now to track disease and flu and things because because the government won’t we’re just it’s broken down I feel like it’s really it’s the Marx brothers just the Hootin and Hollerin in the health department

Lisa Garvin (27:07.869)

I will say this though about dietary advice. We have gotten conflicting information for decades about food and diet and nutrition. So here’s another monkey wrench thrown into that process.

Chris Quinn (27:22.285)

Okay, you listening to Today in Ohio. We talked last week about the Cleveland city planner getting charged with felony theft accused of filing false paperwork to get paid for leave she did not deserve. Now, the charges are all dropped. Laila, what’s going on here?

Leila (27:39.307)

Yeah, this case took a surprising turn for sure. It’s Kim Scott, the city’s chief planner. She was accused of forging documents to steal more than 100 hours of paid leave, but prosecutors have now dropped those felony theft charges and they say there just wasn’t enough evidence to move forward. So here’s what happened here. The city’s own prosecutor has brought this case initially, but when it reached the Cuyahoga County Prosecutor’s Office, they reviewed the paperwork and basically said this just doesn’t hold up.

They sent it back to police for more investigation, calling the evidence too thin to take to a grand jury. Now that doesn’t necessarily clear Scott completely. City prosecutors say that they still could consider misdemeanor charges, but for now the felony case is gone. Scott’s still on unpaid leave while City Hall decides what to do next. And one big unanswered question is police originally said she falsified marriage and death certificates to pose as someone’s spouse, supposedly to get that

paid leave, but even now it’s still not clear how that was supposed to work or what evidence backed it up from the beginning of this whole case. So bottom line is Citi’s top planner is off the hook on felony charges, at least for now, but I guess the story isn’t entirely closed.

Chris Quinn (28:52.431)

Although you do have to question what happened here. mean, her name is is mud. This is very ugly stuff. if you got we talked about this because it was such a stunner this long standing employee in a key position in the Boo administration and and was being portrayed very clearly as as crooked as can be. And now it’s like, well, no, it’s not.

Leila (28:59.452)

Yeah.

Chris Quinn (29:18.007)

Why did the city prosecutor bring a case that the county prosecutor took one look at and said not a chance? What’s really going on here?

Leila (29:26.386)

Right. And if she truly did nothing wrong, think City Hall really owes her more than just dropping the charges kind of quietly. They made this accusation public. They let her name and reputation take this hit. And they put her on unpaid leave. if it turns out that this was a bad call or a rush to judgment, the city has a responsibility to clear her name just as publicly as they tarnished it.

Chris Quinn (29:46.751)

Exactly. She deserves a public apology and the city should investigate how something like this can happen so it doesn’t happen again. If she really is innocent of this thing, this could not have been more unfair. And this didn’t take long. The county prosecutor took one look at it and said, there’s no evidence here and dropped it. I she is not charged with anything right now. I guess she’s going to be back at work, right?

Leila (30:12.242)

Well, yeah, we’ll see for the moment she’s still on unpaid leave, which also seems unfair if the case isn’t moving forward.

Chris Quinn (30:18.445)

Yeah, something very, wrong here. You’re listening to Today in Ohio. That does it for the week of news. Thanks, Leila. Thanks, Lisa. Thanks, Laura. Thank you for being here. We’ll be back Monday talking about the news.