Today in Ohio, the daily news podcast of cleveland.com and The Plain Dealer.

CLEVELAND, Ohio -- U.S. Rep. Tim Ryan’s critique of President Joe Biden’s plan to forgive up to $20,000 in outstanding federal student loan debt for qualifying borrowers is a switch from his past enthusiasm for forgiving student loans.

In 2021, Ryan said doing so could be “great for people who have those student loans and families who have those student loans, including mine.” We’re talking about Ryan changing his mind 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:

More than four months after tax day, more than half of the people who paid wage taxes to Cleveland even though they worked from home are still waiting for their refunds. Why the long delay?

Democrat Tim Ryan, running for the U.S. Senate in Ohio, made headlines this week by opposing Joe Biden’s plan to forgive some student loan debt. Does it turn out that Ryan is waffling?

Do we have greater clarity this week on exactly who were the people the government has said conspired with FirstEnergy on House Bill 6? Until now, that’s been a little fuzzy?

What did the public have to say when people finally had the chance to offer their thoughts to elected Cuyahoga County officials on their proposal to build a new jail on a site contaminated by cancer-causing chemicals?

Cuyahoga County officials keep telling us they have a keen understanding of the safety of county bridges, but for the second time in months, they just discovered one is way more deteriorated than they thought. Which one is it, and how can we have any confidence in these folks? Are our bridges a threat to our safety?

We covered an interesting meeting of residents of a Cleveland neighborhood and Cleveland officials to talk about crime. There was quite a bit of nuance in the conversation. What was it about?

Lee Weingart, a Republican candidate for Cuyahoga County executive, has spent months telling voters he would freeze property tax bills for people over age 60 and household incomes under $50,000. We did some checking, and it sounds like he has been overstating what a county executive has the power to do?

What does an airline owe me when it delays or cancels my flight? Is it up to each airline? How can I find out?

Gas prices hit their all-time highs earlier this year, putting a focus on them as a gauge of inflation, and now people are noticing that many Northeast Ohio gas stations advertise two different prices. What gives?

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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] Are you still waiting for your wages tax refund from Cleveland cuz you didn’t work there. So am I, so is Laura, we have a story about what is taking so long for this inexcusable holding hostage of our cash. It’s today in Ohio, the news podcast discussion from cleveland.com and the plain dealer. I am Chris Quinn here with Lisa Garvin, Laura Johnston and Lala Tossi and Laura it’s getting ridiculous that we don’t have our refunds.

Cleveland took our money really illegally. Cuz we weren’t there and now they will not give it back to

Laura: Yeah. I was talking to my husband. I was like, when did we file this? And he was like, I think around St. Patrick’s day. And you’re like, okay, this is absolutely ridiculous. I’d like my money back now please.

I mean maybe they figure everybody’s. Student loads are gonna be forgiven so they don’t need the

Chris: money. Yeah, I don’t think so. Let’s get to it more than four months after tax day. More than half of the people who paid wage taxes to Cleveland, even though they worked from home are still [00:01:00] waiting for the refunds.

Layla, why the long delay and it sure looks like from what we reported, that they are only paying the lower amount. First and anybody that has more than a thousand bucks coming is being held hostage, which I don’t even get how you could explain that, take us through what we’ve reported. So

Leila: they say the slower pace of refunds earlier in the year relates to the.

Cleveland central collection agencies work as, as a regional tax collector that serves numerous cities other than Cleveland. And that the complexities of that work draw a resources away from issuing tax refunds because they have several other municipalities that they have to distribute funds to on a regular basis.

Uh, they say tax collection agencies for cities that only handle refunds for their own workers and residents don’t have to juggle so much at once. It’s such a bad excuse. Right? Uh, so, so once the bulk of that work was complete, uh, post-tax [00:02:00] filing season, the, the CCA shifted more of its attention and resources to processing returns.

So they have seen a recent uptick in the numbers of refunds that they’ve been able to process. Get this though, though, they’re just nearing the halfway mark of the estimated 5,000 people who requested refunds for 2021. They’ve now paid out 2,330 refunds to people totaling $3.4 million. That’s up significantly though from returns that were processed during the first half of the year.

As of the first week of July, the tax agency had processed just 1,260 re requests or about 25% of those submitted, which was just a 1.7 million. They’re really lagging behind Columbus, Cincinnati and Akron. Um, so right. It’s

Chris: bad. Look, it it’s inexcusable. And here’s the problem they have. I don’t wanna work in.

I we’re, we’re considering having [00:03:00] a downtown office. I don’t wanna work out of it because this is a hassle we’re not five days a week. So every year that we have in Cleveland, we’re going to have to seek refunds, wait forever to get the money I had to pay. My own municipality, the full bill of my income taxes, because I worked here every day, last year.

So in that intervening period, I’m out a lot of money because I’m not getting my refund from Cleveland they’re they’re, they’re trying to get people and companies to say, Hey, please come back and work downtown. And I, I know that workers everywhere are saying, I don’t want to, because dealing with you is way too big, a hassle I’d rather work in a suburb.

Deal with Rita because Rita works at the snap of the fingers. Right? I am troubled. It does look like they have taken the smallest refunds first and there is no justification for that. Other than that, they wanna collect interest on the money as long as possible. That’s not right. They’ve already had it.[00:04:00]

For all of last year, now they’re gonna have it for most of this year and, and getting interest on it that we don’t get. I, I just, this is really unforgivable and I, I know cuz I talk to other people that are making decisions about where to have their offices. They’re they’re hearing it from their workers.

I don’t wanna deal with Cleveland. I don’t wanna, I don’t wanna have to go through this confusing process every year. I mean, let’s face it. The forms you fill out to get this back could not be more confusing. I was just gonna say why you went

Laura: through it. Right. And we had to get, I think something notarized from our company saying we didn’t work there and it was very confusing whether you checked.

That you worked less than, I think 10 days is the limit. I, I might be fuzzy on that one or if you didn’t work at all, or if your company was remote and you had to put everything together and send it in by mail, I mean, they do not make this easy.

Chris: Well, and Justin BBB promised to modernize city hall. He, this is, this is really unforgivable.

It is four and a half [00:05:00] months now past tax day. That is way too long to be claiming they’re doing their best. And it, so I, I think the penalty they’ll pay. Is people are gonna say, yeah, yeah, I’m not gonna do it. I’m not gonna be in Cleveland at all. You get, you won’t get to wi withhold any of my money. Uh, I’ll work in a suburb.

One of our suburban offices paid to the suburb and I’m done with Cleveland, which is a disaster for downtown. And they’re not even thinking of those ramifications going for the short term. Gains anyway, check out the story. It’s on cleveland.com, but this is one of the failures so far of this young administration it’s today in Ohio Democrat, Tim Ryan running for the us Senate in Ohio made headlines this week by opposing Joe Biden’s plan to forgive some student loan debt.

Does it turn out that Ryan is a waffler, Lisa?

Lisa: Well, yes. Um, but we have to go back a couple years to find that waffle, [00:06:00] um, Ryan was the only Democrat from the Ohio, uh, congressional delegation to criticize Biden’s loan forgiveness plan. Um, he said that waving debt of people on the road to success sends the wrong message to Ohios without degrees who were working hard to keep food on the table.

He instead proposed other things he wants across the board tax cuts for middle class and working. Universal universal community college, canceling medical debt, and then, uh, new options for refinancing student loan debt. But he’s sang a slightly different tune back in 2021 in the interview with reporters before his Senate campaign, uh, began, he said that canceling student loan debt would be great for people and families who.

Debt, including his own family, but he says we need broader relief for those who don’t go to college. So he was already signaling, I think, a change of heart there. He also, uh, expressed support for wiping out debt in a 20, 20 CNN interview. [00:07:00] When he was running as the democratic presidential nominee, he said that wiping the debt of six figure earners.

This time around, he says, we’re wiping out the debts of fixed six figure earners. And he says, that just goes too far. Just to explain that, you know, people earning, I think $125,000 get $10,000 in debt. Forgiveness those on Pell grants. Get $20,000 debt forgiveness.

Chris: Well, and let’s, let’s put it in the perspective.

It’s up to $125,000. There’s a whole lot of people that are making 45 and $50,000 that have enormous college loan debt. That’ll be helped by this. It’s amazing to me how everybody has immediately leap to $125,000. Cuz. Because the bulk of people are not making that they’re making far less. And when you have big college debt, when you’re making 45,000 a year, it’s a much bigger chunk of your, uh, income to pay.

Uh, I’m a little bit surprised that he didn’t just [00:08:00] confront this. Face on, instead of letting it come out as a follow up story and why not come out and say, you know, two years ago, I said, I like this idea in addition to other things, but two years later, I really think we need to be working to help everybody.

And, and that this is too specific instead, he, he. Set himself up for a gotcha. Which this is, it’s a gotcha. Oh, oh, you’re waffling. This isn’t what you said two years ago. And it’ll allow his opponent in the Senate race to call him a waffler dumb move by Tim Ryan. It’s today in Ohio. Do we have greater clarity this week on exactly who are the people?

The government has said conspired word first energy on house bill six, until now the people who aren’t charged have been a little bit fuzzy in the documents, Laura, but we have a new deposition that pretty much says who it is. The government is identify.

Laura: I mean, honestly, I don’t think it’s been very fuzzy.

We , we [00:09:00] keep talking about the same couple of people. So, and remember when federal judge John Adams demanded attorneys in March reveal who paid the bribes, this is who they named then, but this is in a deposition. It’s former CEO, Chuck Jones, and chief lobbyist, Michael Downing from first energy, also former house speaker, Larry householder and former PCO chair, Sam Randazzo, same four guys.

We keep talking about, it’s been like two and a half years now, and this is part of a civil lawsuit, which actually goes beyond what first energy admitted last year, as part of their deferred prosecution agreement with federal prosecutors, where they basically said yes, 60 million in bribe.

Chris: Yeah, the, but in the deferred prosecution agreement, they left it a little bit unclear about who exactly was conspiring to violate whatever it is, the wire transfer act or, or whatever the, the thing is.

And in this deposition, When, when the, the official was asked straight out, she [00:10:00] said, yeah, it’s pretty clear that it’s these guys and yep. Again, it raises a question. Okay. If it’s these guys, why aren’t they

Laura: indicted? Right. And they, so first energy sent Tracy, Ashton, she’s their first, their first energy assistant controller.

And there were a whole lot of questions she could not answer. I think, I think something like a hundred question, she said, She couldn’t answer that she and the judge, the magistrate said she was inadequately prepared for the deposition because, and she didn’t review relevant facts prior to it. So it’s like, firsty says they’re cooperating, but then they send this person to take a deposition who obviously doesn’t know everything.

It doesn’t have the. Uh, control to be able to say everything that’s happening. So they’ve asked for the next time they do this to get somebody who actually knows what they’re talking about. But I would like to point out that this deposition transcript was made public last week through a filing submitted to the P UCO by the office of the consumer.

It’s council, sorry, the Ohio [00:11:00] consumers council, which is the state utility consumer watchdog. Okay. So another bunch of information we got through the P D U C that is now saying, okay, we’re gonna back up our investigations.

Chris: Yeah. It’s interesting that they say we need to talk to somebody that can answer questions and they send the equivalent of the, the valet parking guy out front to command.

Okay. I don’t know. I don’t know beats me. I don’t know. That’s a good question. I don’t know my reading of the document says, but I don’t know. And you can understand why a judge ha loses patients with that. It is like you said, further evidence. First energy is trying to say, Hey, we’re good. Now we got rid of the bad guys.

We’re doing everything right. But they are doing everything they can to stop this from proceeding. And

Laura: you know, it’s funny. I went to a guardians game on Friday and I was at tennis in the land on Monday and both. Venues had prominent advertisements from energy Harbor. Right. And it’s like this pretty little picture, like, and it’s blue and it makes you think of the lake.

And I’m like that elegant. That is the first [00:12:00] energy spinoff that we’re all still paying our taxpayer money paid for. Now they’re advertising. Is this lovely, you know, do good citizen company.

Chris: So credit to Jerry Pelzer cuz he, he spotted this in the, in the deposition and understood the importance of it.

It’s a good story on cleveland.com. You’re listening to today in Ohio. What did the public have to say? When people finally had the chance to offer their thoughts to elected? County officials of Cuyahoga on their proposal to build a new jail on a site contaminated by cancer causing chemicals, Leila. This went a little bit differently than I thought they don’t wanna build a new jail at all.

Leila: Well, first, uh, you know, I wanna say that. Uh, at this public hearing, Armen Buddhi county executive did not attend, uh, though his chief of staff, bill Mason was in attendance along with other public work staff. No county council members were there, but from the steering committee that, that has been making the decisions about the [00:13:00] jail.

There, there was the sheriff, Steven Hammit prosecutor, Michael Malley was there. Public defender called Sweeney and common pleas administrative judge Brennan Shean they were all there.

Chris: Well, but, but, but, but hold on a minute too, cuz O’Malley Sweeney and Shean are the three that have been really the most vocal about building on a toxic site.

So it’s not surprising they went because they’ve been the most responsive to this. It’s shocking to me. The county council, which has been ramming this through and advertised, we’re gonna have this hearing. We got all got the press releases. Didn’t even have the decency to face the music with an angry electorate that doesn’t wanna go.

How, how can you claim your ti. Tapped into what people are thinking. If you won’t even go and sit across from them and hear them. Yeah.

Leila: Yep. And there were about a hundred people who showed up to this hearing last night and, and spoke out against the jail. Largely they were, they were given, it seems as much time as [00:14:00] they needed to get through everyone who wanted to speak, which have mounted to about an hour and a half.

And they ask dozens of questions. Why a new jail is the best use of half a billion public dollars. How a new building will fix some of the inhumane conditions that they said stemmed from leadership and staffing problems rather than structural concerns of the building and, and what the long term ramifications may be.

If, if the mitigation systems meant to protect the community from toxins on the site were to fail and not. Any of those questions were answered in real time. Uh, Ken Dowell, the consultant hired to moderate the community meeting promise that all the questions would be shared eventually with county council and the 12 member justice centers, executive steering committee, before any decisions are made about the jail.

But like I said, county council, they weren’t there to hear it. And you know, who knows it? Could you just be like, oh yes, uh, thanks for your input. And, uh, we will take it under advisement. Um, many of the people in attendance agreed that the [00:15:00] conditions at the current jail are completely inhumane and unacceptable, but they don’t wanna see a new jail built on a toxic dump site or otherwise they, they instead, a lot of them express that they, they wanna see community solutions that stem the need for mass incarceration in the first place.

You know, that’s kind of where a lot of people were coming from.

Chris: What was impressive though, these were people who were paying attention because they said, look, a new jail. Doesn’t correct. All the sins of this administration, right? You you’re running a terrible jail. The administration of this jail is a disaster.

You need to fix that before we do anything else and let’s face it. For 45 years, the jail wasn’t a place like this. It’s only been under Armen Buddhi that this has turned into such a horrible, horrible place. So I, it was impressive. I did not expect that. I thought this was gonna be, are you kidding me?

You’re gonna put inmates sleeping on top of benzene, Laden soil. How cuckoo are you guys? And there was that, but it [00:16:00] was more, you guys are INCOM. Figure out how to run the jail. And then let’s talk about what our needs are. I, I am though. I, I, you know, and the council they’re forcing this down the public’s throats, we have reported over and over again on this we’re hearing from hundreds of people that are dead set against it, and they don’t even have the.

Decency to show up, you know, there’s an HBO show on, uh, hurricane Katrina called Shme where in one of the episodes, they had a great song, uh, that they put together to, to embarrass public officials. I think it was called shame, shame, shame. We gotta pull that back, reword it and apply it to these guys for the shame of not having the decency to show up did really bad.

I. Didn’t see that coming. Did you

Leila: see this? Uh, so within Caitlyn’s story, there’s this photo she took of this poster that they had, you know, giant poster . Did you see it? So it has all these, you know, they wanted people to participate in, in marking what they thought were the priorities for a new building, and they have all these.

Areas that, you know, [00:17:00] building should make a statement. Landscape used as a visual buffer, you know, all these priority areas that they, for the, for the new facility. And they wanted people to put a sticker under the ones that they wanted to see as a priority. And somebody put a. Giant piece of paper, kind of paperclip to the side that says no new jail and everyone put their stickers

Yeah, I know it was. And it’s such a statement. It’s amazing. It, it was. Yeah, I know, but nobody who’s in a decision making ability cuz ultimately the county council and the executive make this decision were there. Although I should say Chrisna a candidate for county executive. Yes. Was. Did speak up. So he’s basically weighed in and said, hold on.

This is a bad idea. Um, good stuff. I, I just, again, didn’t see it coming. I thought they would have the deep, basic decency to stand there and look their constituents in the eyes. But I guess they don’t like being yelled at it’s today in Ohio. [00:18:00] COGA county officials keep telling us they have a keen understanding of the safety of county bridges for the second time in months though, they just discovered one.

That is way more deteriorated than they thought. Which one is it? And how can we have any confidence Lisa in these folks? they tell us the bridges are all good. They’re on top of it twice. Now. It’s like, uhoh we better close this down for the long term. This could fall. Forward, but to

Lisa: be fair, sometimes you can’t see these things until you start the project, which is exactly what happened here.

The renovation of the Cedar point road bridge and the Metro parks, Rocky river reservation will take several months longer because they found serious deterioration after the project began in some of the steel beams that are supporting this span. But here’s the thing. This bridge is 93 years old. It’s, uh, kind of, you know, under the.

Of the Ohio preservation office because of its historic designation. So there were plans to reuse [00:19:00] some of these original steel beams to maintain the historic integrity of the bridge, but they discovered that these beams are not worth saving and they really need to put some new ones in. Interesting this bridge, you know, it’s old, it’s almost a hundred years old.

It’s the earliest surviving type of bridge in Ohio. And it has these beautiful aesthetics. It’s got these local sandstone railings and everything, but now because of these beams having to be replaced, the bridge will now remain closed until next summer. That’s six months beyond the original deadline.

This is a common. From people that go to NASA Glenn research center, getting to north Olmsted and adjacent communities work began in this last July. So it’s been closed for a year since then. It’s a $3 million project and it was delayed by the union industrial contractors group, which is redoing the bridge.

They said, although there’s no way we can save these beam.

Chris: You know, you said something though, that, that, that does raise an issue. They’re [00:20:00] telling us it’s all fine. We, you know, that we gotta handle on this, but, and you’re saying well, but they can’t find out how bad it is until they open it up. Doesn’t that speak to an enormous flaw in our inspection process.

and you can’t have both, you can’t say it’s all fine. Trust us. The bridges are. And then on the other hand say, yeah, but we really don’t know what’s going on until we start to look. One of those, those things should change. They should either have some sort of system for regularly at intervals doing a deeper inspection than they’re doing, or they should stop telling us that it’s safe and just say, Hey, when you’re on the bridges, , it’s, you’re, you’re taking a risk.

Lisa: Well, and I think we did a story about that. I think there, you know, I think we talked about it on the podcast that they need to, because there was another bridge, it had the same issue. They found this, you know, bad rebar when they started to take away the concrete. But yeah, I think they were talking about like some sign of kind of sonar or something to look at a bridge so you can see the underlying structure.

Chris: Yeah, I, I just, it it’s [00:21:00] really, I think it should shake confidence a little bit, that this has happened twice in short order. And, you know, we have salty roads and all of the deteriorating forces that attack the steel and bridges. So it’s not surprising that some are in bad shape it’s today in Ohio. We covered an interesting meeting of residents of a Cleveland neighborhood and Cleveland officials to talk about crime.

And it was a lot of nuance in the conversation, Laura, it was a real nice story that John Tucker put together about the conflicts that exist in dealing with crime in Cleveland. What was it about?

Laura: Yeah. Dozens of residents came to this meeting, which was organized by Councilwoman Jasmine Santana, and it was about safety and gun violence.

She said that safety worries are the number one reason. That people are calling her office this year, and this was a call to action. So mayor Justin Bibb, public safety director, Carrie Howard and police chief Wayne Drummond were all there. Um, about a hundred people, uh, at the pivot center for the [00:22:00] arts on west 25th.

And they, what was really weighing on their mind was there’s 14 year old girl named D Wright was fatally shot by 15 year old boy on Tuesday morning. I mean, so that was the day before this meeting. And while Howard and Drummond outlined several initiatives, like a, a violent crime reduction task force, the program they’ve had targeting illegal dirt bikes efforts to address 9 1, 1 callers.

Basically they. There should be more the, the residents said, and they, they said that we wanna be able to trust the police department and we don’t always feel that

Chris: way. Yeah, this wasn’t an angry, shouting match. This was people that are, that are bothered by what’s going on with crime. They’re bothered by the lack of a stronger relationship with police.

And then on the other side, there was an acknowledgement, I mean the city of course saying, Hey, we’re trying, we’re trying our best, but I loved carry Howard public safety director when he. You know, look before [00:23:00] I got involved in the administration, I was one of you. So I know what you’re talking about.

Mm-hmm with the police. Mm-hmm that was a great acknowledgement. I mean, I, if I’m sitting in that audience, I’m gonna feel like, wow, there’s somebody in this administration that gets it.

Laura: Yeah, I think so. And, and there was only one kind of TIF between the residents and the police department. And that was, we talked about earlier on this podcast this week, an.

Tober who sued the pian police in the city over openly carrying a firearm in the streets. And he says that there should be more done that, um, this kind of animosity hasn’t developed out of thin air. So, but they talked about the de consent decree. They talked about their efforts and it did feel like everybody’s on the same page and that they want to address the violence.

Chris: This was organized by Councilwoman Jasmine Santana. . Yes, exactly. Yeah. I, I gotta give her real credit for, for setting up a situation for a [00:24:00] healthy conversation. If we had more of these kinds of conversations in Cleveland, I think everybody’d be better ahead. And, you know, you gotta give a tip of the hat to the administration for participating in it in good faith.

Laura: Right? Unlike the jail story we just talked about, they all show

Chris: up. . Boy, I wish I’d have thought of that. That’s a good line. Shame, shame, shame. it’s today in Ohio Lee, WGAR a Republican candidate for Cuyahoga county. Executive has spent months telling voters he would freeze property tax bills for people over 60, by the way, he calls them seniors.

If. They’re over 60 shame, shame, shame. they’re not seniors at 60 speaking as a 60 anyway. And they also have to have to have household incomes under 50,000. We did some checking and it sounds like he is way overstating. What a county executive has the power to do. And Layla, I wanna point out if people live in Kaga county and subscribe to either the plain deal or cleveland.com, this is the kind of watchdog reporting their money [00:25:00] supports.

Leila: Yes. And, uh, so, so Wineguard has been saying. When I am county executive, we will freeze the property tax bills for seniors on fixed incomes. And in fact, despite the fact that our, our watchdog reporting illuminates this, our, our listeners might have caught this exact commercial at the beginning of this podcast.

I should point that out because we have been running it. So, um, his, his tax relief plan pledges to help homeowners over the age of 60 and, and with an annual household income below $50,000. By resetting the taxable value of their homes to pre 2021 rates and freezing that value until the home sells or is otherwise transferred.

Those owners who have also lived in their homes for at least 20 years, could have their taxable value reset to 20% below the pre 2021 level until the home sells or otherwise transfers. So the problem is. Even as county executive, he wouldn’t have the [00:26:00] power to freeze property taxes for anyone Caitlin Durbin reached out to the Ohio department of taxation to learn more about how a proposal like this might work.

And she learned that this kind of tax relief would require an act of the general assembly. So it’s not something that’s within the power of the county executive. WGAR said he, he does think that he would have the authority to lower property taxes by altering the appraisal rates for certain qualifying

Yeah. Not a chance. You can’t do that. He’s, he’s completely wrong on

Leila: if not, you know, he, he said, he’s already come up with a plan B and he has asked state representative Tom Patton to draft legislation that would grant authority to counties with charter forms of governments and populations over a million dollar or a million people, which is only KGA county.

Really. To freeze property values for certain demographics. So that’s only us. Pat said he has tried and failed to pass similar statewide legislation before. So he’s really interested in trying again this time using Keah county as a pilot. [00:27:00] So I don’t know. Well,

Chris: I, I do wanna show this a little bit because Winegart has clearly picked up on something that we’re hearing a lot of from people they’re weary of tax increases, you know, right now Buddhi and the council wanna perpetually raise the sales tax and nobody wants.

You know, Wineguard said, if they do that, he’s gonna force it into the ballot where it’ll fail. So, so he’s trying to figure out a way to tax relief and he’s, you know, bad on him for not having a fully thought out plan for how he would do what he wants to do. Because when he first started talking about it, he was just gonna do it.

Then we started questioning him and he goes, well, I’ll I’ll reduce their appraisals and that’s like major red flags. You can’t do that. The appraisal system is sacro sank. You cannot mess with that. And it’s unfair. But I do think because he’s sensing this, you know, a county executive does have the bully pulpit and let’s face it.

We know Lee Winegart has gotten stuff through the legislature before. He’s the guy that got us, the med [00:28:00] Mart. .

Laura: But, so what I wonder. Schools would think of this, cuz I mean, we depend on property taxes to fund schools and, and when the value of your house goes up, the property taxes go up in general too.

Right? So this. This would hurt schools. Well, if it ever went through,

Chris: he, his argument is it would actually help schools because seniors, he says votes against school taxes because fixed incomes. So if they knew they’d get relief, they might be more likely to push it. Right. He also says a point for reduction in budgets is something they can cope with.

And I do. Taxpayers, largely agree with them that the budgets are bloated again, you know, we’ve got tax increase. I mean, name one time when we’ve reduced taxes, the taxes are always going up. And so, uh, I think he’s tapped into something and he probably can find. A way to do this because he is a Republican, who’d be working with the Republican legislature.

He just hasn’t figured out. I [00:29:00] think we’ve done more work to figure it up than he has. so good story by Caitlin Durbin. It’s on cleveland.com and we’re, we’re at a time with multiple things we haven’t talked about. It’s been a good discussion today on today in Ohio. So thank you, Lisa, Laura and Layla. I hope you all have a pleasant weekend.

Thanks to everybody who listens. Come on back Monday. We’ll have more to talk about.

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