We are going to look at the League of Women Voters forum for the Ohio Senate District 23 race between Republican Robert Dintaman and Democrat Bride Rose Sweeney. This was another really interesting forum, and I’m going to go through it.

First, I’m going to give you my reaction to the candidates’ opening statements.

After that, I’m going to give you a TL;DR explaining the central message from each candidate, along with my comments on each question.

Finally, I’ve cleaned up the transcript of the questions and answers, with the help of ChatGPT, so you can read what the candidates actually said without having to sit through the entire forum and without my comments or paraphrasing of their answers.

You can watch the forum here:

TL;DR

First, I want to say that I think League of Women Voters forums are always the best. Whether it’s Cuyahoga County, Medina, Wayne, or wherever, they know how to run a tight ship, and they get candidates in front of constituents.

They’re tough forums because the questions come directly from constituents, and the candidates have to stay within strict time limits and boundaries.

The one thing I do wish they had was real-time fact-checking. In the future, I would love to see the League of Women Voters have two volunteers sitting off to the side fact-checking claims as the forum is happening.

With that said, Bride is, again, one of my favorite legislators.

She is somebody who can be a proud Democrat and pragmatic at the same time. She has original ideas and thoughts, doesn’t involve herself in a lot of drama, and gets the job done.

She already has a lot of accomplishments under her belt, and I think she will continue stacking bills in the legislature that are actually actionable and useful for the State of Ohio.

In this forum, she also showed discipline, poise, and a strong understanding of the different topics she was talking about.

She played the partisan game when it was actually relevant to the conversation, not as a distraction or a diversion because she didn’t know an answer, which I’ve seen in other forums.

She used partisanship as emphasis.

“I’m a proud Democrat because we did this.”

Or, “Even as a proud Democrat, I teamed up with Republican Governor Mike DeWine.”

That showed, in my opinion, the kind of temperament you actually need if you’re going to be a work-across-the-aisle legislator in Columbus.

Robert knows he has an uphill battle, and I don’t fault him for that.

Getting out there and running for office is super hard. And, to be perfectly honest with you, I fell into a lot of the same traps that he has.

He is Mr. Bipartisan. He is the “I’ll work across the aisle,” “I’ll work with everybody” candidate.

He knows he’s running in a Democratic district, and League of Women Voters forums, at least in Cuyahoga County, are usually going to have a Democratic-leaning audience, if not an audience made up mostly of Democrats.

With that said, I’ve seen this from a lot of first-time candidates.

They try to become the peacemaker. They think going out there and saying, “I’ll work with everybody,” is going to be the thing that gets a Democrat to vote for the Republican, or gets an independent who usually votes Democratic to cross over.

It isn’t.

In my opinion, it can come across as a lack of preparation and a lack of conviction.

I also think this can be difficult for lawyers, especially lawyers.

Lawyers train their brains to take emotion and bias out of their day-to-day work. They look at the law. They look at how to interpret it for their clients. They look at precedent and try to find the best outcome for the person they represent.

So when Robert says he works across the aisle, I actually believe him.

That has basically been his professional training. Suspend emotion, look at the facts, look at the law, look at precedent, and figure out the best outcome.

But electoral politics is different. Voters also want to know what you actually believe, where you draw lines, and what you are willing to fight for.

So, in my opinion, the TL;DR here is that this was another very educational forum, and it showed why Bride Rose Sweeney is a very experienced and effective legislator in Columbus.

Opening Statements

Matt’s Take

Initially, I think visuals matter, and that’s part of what these kinds of formats are about. We’ve known this since the first televised Nixon-Kennedy debate.

Bride Rose Sweeney is smiley, bubbly, and happy to be there. She thanked her opponent for being there and also thanked everybody for showing up and agreeing to do this. She clearly understands the importance of this kind of forum.

Robert looks a little gruff, a little grumpy. He looks like he knows he’s behind the eight ball and also probably not the favorite to win this race. Being the Republican in a room that was probably full of Democrats, in a very Democratic-leaning district, probably puts him a little off-guard.

His opening statement, though, was very focused and well laid out. You understood where he stood.

But I also saw the same thing here that I saw with Republican Sofia Tjotjos in the Ohio House District 16 forum. It seems like Robert may be masking some of his actual ideas because they might come across as a little too Republican for the audience in the room.

Bride Rose Sweeney, again, is one of my favorite legislators in the State House. She was very transparent, very forthright about what she’s done, who she is, and the bills that she’s passed.

This is going to be a fun one to watch.

Question 1: Representing a Large and Diverse District

Question: How would you balance the competing economic, infrastructure, and community needs across a district that stretches from Bay Village through Cleveland and into the eastern suburbs?

Matt’s Take

This is where I think we’re going to start seeing the difference between someone who is a policy wonk, an experienced legislator, and someone who can also build on that experience with charisma and really answer these questions.

I don’t want to sound biased here, but I am a Bride Rose Sweeney fan, if you will.

Her answer to Question 1 was pretty straightforward. She talked about the holes in the budget, the realities that come with that, and the need to build a bridge between the city and the suburbs and between very different suburbs, from Lakewood to Bay Village to Rocky River. Her point was that there is no one-size-fits-all solution.

That’s a very good answer.

Robert, on the other hand, talked about talking to folks, finding common ground, and getting out into the community.

This is where, to me, it starts to sound like first-time candidate talk from someone who hasn’t quite figured out how he’s going to position himself within the policy conversation.

I would call this, unfortunately, rookie talking points and a rookie error.

Question 2: Legislative Priority

Question: If elected, what is one piece of legislation you would most want to introduce or co-sponsor?

Matt’s Take

I appreciate Robert’s response and his concern about property taxes. They have, in my opinion, become onerous on a lot of homeowners, and I do think you have to work with Democrats and Republicans.

Again, I always think that’s kind of a weird middle-of-the-road cop-out, this idea of, “Look, I love everybody, I’ll work with everybody,” as a talking point. But in this case, it’s also true. You are going to have to work with everybody to figure this out.

That said, if Republicans continue to control as much of the legislature as they do right now, you’re really not going to have to work with Democrats nearly as much as you’re going to have to work within the Republican caucus itself.

Bride understands that property taxes and school funding are synonymous, and she isn’t going to dance around that. That is the real question. If somebody is talking about getting rid of property taxes, they are also talking about fundamentally changing how we fund kids’ education. Those two things are tied together.

But I did not hear a real solution from either one of them.

And, to be perfectly honest, I think this (property taxes) is something Democrats have notoriously been very poor at talking about, even though it is a massive elephant-in-the-room issue.

Question 3: Most Challenging Aspect of Serving in the Senate

Question: What do you anticipate will be the most challenging aspect of serving as an Ohio State Senator?

Matt’s Take

I feel like Bride Rose Sweeney actually gives the definition of a state legislator’s job almost exactly right. It’s a weird concept when you really think about it, but it is what it is: their job as lawmakers is to figure out how to spend all of the money the state collects and decide where it goes.

That really is the job.

But on this question, I’m going to have to be with Robert.

It’s a $100 billion budget, and they’re still having shortfalls. That is absolutely unacceptable, in my opinion.

He brings up Medicaid fraud. Again, I would need much more evidence to show that Medicaid fraud represents a substantial loss of revenue or spending power in the overall state budget.

But I generally lean toward a pretty simple principle: if you have a budget, you stay within your budget.

You can’t keep having shortfalls.

Question 4: Long-Term Budget Stability, Tax Reform, and Economic Development

Question: With a four-year term in the Senate, how would you approach long-term state budget stability, tax reform, and statewide economic development?

Matt’s Take

Robert really didn’t have an answer beyond getting spending under control and working across the aisle.

To me, that’s another rookie mistake from someone who maybe hasn’t thought through this issue deeply enough yet.

Bride, on the other hand, brings receipts.

She says that, over the past 15 years, Ohio has given away exemptions to the tune of $17 billion. Her argument is basically this: Ohio can be a great place to do business, but if you’re allowing major companies and high-net-worth individuals, some of your biggest potential revenue sources, to avoid paying into the system while you’re also running shortfalls, then you don’t necessarily have a spending problem. You have a special-interest problem.

She also points out that people in the lower tax brackets actually saw an increase of $32.

I mean, that was an amazing answer. Really strong.

That said, I also feel like there is always a spending problem somewhere. I don’t think those two things are mutually exclusive.

Question 5: H2Ohio and Lake Erie

Question: Should Ohio keep, change, or expand H2Ohio, and what should the state do to protect Lake Erie?

Matt’s Take

Bride comes out swinging, saying she’s a proud Democrat and that she’s proud to say she’s working with Republican Governor Mike DeWine.

She explains what has happened, why H2Ohio is important, why she voted against a budget that cut money from the program, and why she will continue to defend it.

I feel like her answer just had everything in it. She’s a proud Democrat, but she’s also willing to say, “Hey, this Republican governor did something right, and I support it.”

We still haven’t really heard Robert say, “I’m a Republican,” yet. He seems to be trying to create this middle-of-the-road, work-with-everybody sort of thing.

He’s running in a district that is overwhelmingly Democratic, so I understand why he’s doing that. But at the same time, this was a point where he could have said, “I really respect Mike DeWine and what he was doing,” kind of like Bride did.

Other than that, it’s good to hear that Robert acknowledges protecting Lake Erie is a very important part of government stewardship.

Question 6: State Environmental Standards

Question: As federal air and water regulations change, what role should Ohio play in setting and enforcing its own environmental standards?

Matt’s Take

I won’t belabor this one too much.

It seems like they’re pretty much on the same page when it comes to understanding the importance of protecting the environment.

Bride added a little more color to the issue by explaining how the federal government, depending on who is in the administration, can move the goalposts, change standards, or shift resources available to the state. When that happens, Ohio has to scramble to figure out how to respond.

That was actually pretty insightful, and I appreciated that she added that context.

Question 7: Gas Tax Suspension

Question: Should Ohio suspend the gas tax, and if so, how should the state account for the resulting loss of transportation revenue?

Matt’s Take

Finally, we have a real difference of opinion here. A pretty major one.

I’m actually somewhere in the middle on this. I’m generally a lower-tax, lower-spending kind of person, but Bride is right on the basic budgeting principle: if you already have taxes and spending commitments in place, you can’t just willy-nilly stop collecting revenue and pretend those obligations disappear.

You can’t cut a tax and create a $700 million hole in the budget without a plan to replace that money. That is not responsible budgeting.

Yes, gas prices are high. And yes, that is not necessarily the fault of the state. A lot of that comes from federal policy choices and broader economic conditions.

But I think there are better ways to provide relief to families than cutting a tax that is directly tied to funding the Ohio Department of Transportation.

On this one, I think Bride had the more responsible budgeting argument.

Question 8: Mail-In Ballot Grace Period

Question: Should Ohio restore a grace period for mail-in ballots that are postmarked by Election Day but arrive afterward?

Matt’s Take

I love how, when you watch these forums, you can see when candidates get genuinely heated about certain topics, and Bride was pissed about this one. It’s obvious she’s passionate about the issue.

I think they both have a point.

Personally, I like having a voter cutoff. Ballots should be received by a certain date, voting should be finished when the polls close on Election Day, all ballots should be counted, and we should have a timely result. I like that. It’s clean, it’s comfortable, and we already have a long early-voting period.

But Bride does have a real point.

If you have a federal government that has been messing with the Postal Service, and your ballot is postmarked before Election Day but doesn’t arrive until afterward because of cuts, reorganizations, or whatever other finagling is happening at the federal level, then that is absolutely an issue. We can’t pretend it isn’t.

On a personal note, this has nothing to do with elections, but I traded in my Apple Watch and mailed it to Apple’s return center during the last election. It was delayed by probably more than a month. Because it arrived so late, Apple offered me less for the watch than they had previously.

Obviously, that’s nowhere near as important as a ballot, but the point is that I thought the watch was lost. It wasn’t lost. It was just massively delayed in the mail.

So I think they both have a legitimate point.

The postmark has to matter. But at the same time, if you put something in snail mail on Election Day and it takes two weeks to arrive, there also has to be some level of personal responsibility.

Question 9: AI-Generated Election Deception

Question: Does Ohio have sufficient safeguards against AI-generated deception in elections, and should AI-generated political content be labeled or otherwise regulated?

Matt’s Take

I’m not even sure anybody fully answered this question, although there were pieces of an answer from both of them.

The fact that you can legally lie in Ohio political advertising is absolutely crazy. And again, Cleveland.com and The Plain Dealer have said they were going to create a website to fact-check political ads in Ohio. I think that’s a great idea. Hopefully they’re looking at mailers and everything else too. Honestly, maybe that’s something I should be doing as well.

There should be some kind of operation that fact-checks this stuff.

Robert says he wants to work in a bipartisan way and create “reasonable guardrails,” but guardrails around what, exactly? What are you actually proposing?

Again, I don’t know if Robert has really thought through a lot of these issues beyond saying, “I’m going to work bipartisanly.”

The one thing neither candidate really addressed, and I think absolutely has to be part of this conversation, is the First Amendment.

Political speech is core protected speech. If someone is making an AI-generated ad, a political parody, or political content about a candidate or elected official, that speech deserves very strong protection.

I don’t know whether AI-generated political content should always be labeled as AI. I don’t even know if requiring a label in every circumstance is the right answer.

But when you start creating deepfakes or extremely realistic representations of candidates and elected officials that make it appear they said or did something they never actually said or did, then you have a real problem of deception and authentication.

So I think there has to be some way to distinguish authentic material from manipulated material and to create checks around deceptive AI content.

But we also have to walk very carefully here, because whatever rules we create have to protect political speech and the First Amendment.

Question 10: Ranked-Choice Voting

Question: Should Ohio allow ranked-choice voting, particularly at the local level?

Matt’s Take

In terms of ranked-choice voting, I think local communities should be able to decide how they run their own local elections.

I do think it could become confusing if you have two different systems on the same ballot, especially in a November election where the state operates one way, the county elections operate another way, and then your municipality might operate under a completely different system. That could absolutely become problematic.

I am for ranked-choice voting.

But I also think Democrats in Ohio may support it because they assume it is going to help them win more seats or give them more control in areas where they already have an advantage. The problem is that ranked-choice voting does not inherently benefit Democrats.

It could go exactly the opposite way.

Remember, under ranked-choice voting, you could end up with two Republicans effectively competing against each other in a way that starts carving Democrats out of the process entirely.

So I am for it. I’m also in favor of more of a jungle-primary system, like California.

But I think Democrats in Ohio who support ranked-choice voting because they assume it will benefit them electorally might not like all of the consequences once the system is actually in place.

Question 11: Business Tax Incentives and Accountability

Question: How should Ohio balance tax breaks and other incentives for businesses against the cost to taxpayers, and what accountability measures should be required?

Matt’s Take

Both had very good points here, and honestly, if you combined both of their arguments, I think you would have a win for the people of Ohio.

Bride points out that 75% of the businesses that received taxpayer money did not actually meet the job-creation targets they signed up for. In my opinion, that is a problem.

The entire reason you are incentivizing a business to come to Ohio is so that it creates jobs for people in Ohio. You are competing with 49 other states. You are trying to provide resources and make Ohio attractive. Yes, you absolutely have to incentivize businesses to come here.

But if a company comes here and says it is going to create 1,000 jobs and it creates 600, then it did not meet the requirements that justified those tax breaks.

So there has to be accountability. There has to be transparency.

At the same time, Robert also makes a very good point about NDAs. You cannot have everything happening under the cover of darkness when you are talking about community projects, especially when taxpayer money is involved.

You do want to incentivize businesses. So how does all of this fit together?

In my opinion, if another state wants to offer companies the cover of darkness, NDAs, and no real accountability, then they can keep those jobs.

But I also think that with the right incentives, the right programs, and real transparency, this can be a win-win for businesses, workers, and taxpayers.

Question 12: Small Businesses and the Business Income Tax Deduction

Question: What should Ohio do to support small businesses, and should the state change its small-business income-tax deduction?

Matt’s Take

Again, they both can be right and wrong at the same time.

The fact is, Bride is 100% correct that there is a loophole. At the same time, you need to incentivize people to start their own small businesses.

There is a real catch-22 right now when it comes to small businesses.

Real estate is very expensive. There is not enough mixed-use real estate where you can live upstairs from your small business if you have a shop. So retail is really getting hit.

A lot of people are also working from home, which means your small business is now taking over part of your home space. You might have to expand, build out an office, or dedicate part of your house to running that business.

You don’t pay income taxes on up to $250,000, which can absolutely become a loophole. But at the same time, the whole point is to allow people to use their own capital, take the risk, grow their business, and hopefully hire people.

I can absolutely see the abuse of that loophole.

If you have a “small business,” in air quotes, but one household has five different small businesses that are really just five different pieces of the same basic company structure, then yeah, that might be a problem.

But at the same time, the risk is real.

People who are willing to put their own money on the line, start a business, and take that risk should be incentivized to do so.

And with that said, I think you also have to recognize just how difficult the environment has become for actual small businesses.

You have private equity coming in and buying up HVAC companies, mom-and-pop shops, dry cleaners, and all kinds of local businesses. Now you have big business effectively buying out small business and creating a market where it becomes much harder for independent operators to find margins and compete.

That matters.

When I’m talking about small businesses, I’m not talking about some multimillion-dollar company that still technically qualifies under a broad definition of “small business.” I’m talking about actual small businesses.

At that level, $250,000 a year is not some massive amount of money. In the context of running a business, paying expenses, reinvesting, taking risk, and trying to grow, it can be pretty minor.

So I think that has to be part of the conversation too.

There has to be a balance between closing abuse of the loophole and protecting the kind of genuinely small businesses that we actually want people to start, grow, and keep independent.

Question 13: Data Centers and Local Control

Question: How much say should local communities have in approving data-center projects, and should Ohio pause new approvals while studying their effects?

Matt’s Take

On data centers, they’re basically saying the same thing.

Yes, there should be transparency. Local individuals should have a say, and it shouldn’t just be local governments signing NDAs and making decisions for everybody behind closed doors.

I think this should be a citywide democratic process. If something this large is going to affect water, electricity, land use, traffic, taxes, and the surrounding community, then the people who actually live there should know what’s happening and have a meaningful voice in the decision.

With that said, just saying no all the time probably isn’t the best solution either.

You’re also talking about union jobs and skilled-trade jobs for pipefitters, ironworkers, electricians, and a whole range of other workers who would be involved in building these facilities. There are real employment and economic-development benefits that come with them.

So I agree with both candidates here.

The answer is transparency, local input, and accountability, but not automatically treating every data-center proposal as something that should be stopped.

Question 14: State-Level AI Regulation

Question: What role, if any, should Ohio play in regulating AI, especially when a 50-state patchwork could create conflicting rules?

Matt’s Take

It seemed like Robert didn’t really understand the question because his answer was basically gibberish.

Bride, on the other hand, said two things at the same time, and again, complex issues sometimes require nuanced, complex answers.

A 50-state patchwork for AI regulation is not ideal.

To be perfectly honest, when you have 50 different regulatory systems, the companies best positioned to navigate all of that are the biggest companies. Google, Apple, Microsoft, Meta, and the other giants can afford compliance teams, lawyers, engineers, and systems that manage 50 different regulatory environments.

A startup with two developers cannot.

That kind of patchwork can actually benefit the largest companies while squeezing out smaller competitors before they ever have a chance to grow.

That is a real issue.

At the same time, I do think states’ rights are imperative. That is part of what the United States is built around. Different states have different ideas, different regulations, different business environments, different tax structures, different infrastructure, different cultures, different populations, different climates, and different priorities.

That is part of how states compete with each other.

So why shouldn’t Ohio be able to make its own rules for AI? I don’t see anything inherently wrong with that.

The problem is timing.

If enough states begin regulating AI differently, that may eventually force the federal government to step in and create one national framework. But by the time that happens, some of the smaller startups may already have been squeezed out because of the logistical, operational, and financial burden of complying with dozens of different systems.

Then you’re left with the Googles, Microsofts, and Metas of the world because they were the only companies large enough to survive the patchwork.

So Bride’s answer gets at the real tension here: states should absolutely have the ability to act, but fragmented regulation can also unintentionally strengthen the biggest companies at the expense of startups.

Question 15: AI and Job Displacement

Question: What role should the state play in helping workers whose jobs are changed or eliminated by automation and AI?

Matt’s Take

By Question 15, Robert finally gives the answer that I thought was the best.

Sorry, Robert, if you ever read this. Don’t know you, but this is where we are.

I have said this multiple times: school districts and the state should be calling OpenAI and Anthropic and saying, “Build us specific AI applications for education.”

Not apps that just give students the answers. Not apps that do everything for them, look everything up, and write the essay.

I’m talking about AI that works as an extension of the teacher. A tutor in the classroom. Something that helps explain concepts, gives additional examples, works through problems with students, and helps teachers scale what they are already doing.

And we should be thinking about this same model across the workforce.

AI is here to stay. So the question is not how do we stop it. The question is how do we extend jobs with it, retrain people around it, and teach people how to work alongside it.

That means partnerships between universities, companies, the state, schools, employers, and other stakeholders who are going to shape the future of Ohio and, honestly, society.

The goal should be to create something that is beneficial, educational, and actually useful as a tool for everyone.

Question 16: Automatic License Plate Readers / Flock Cameras

Question: Should police be required to get a warrant before accessing data collected by automatic license plate reader systems?

Matt’s Take

This is an absolutely fascinating issue.

First things first, can we cut the bullshit and stop calling these things “automated license plate readers”?

It feels a little bit like we’re being gaslit by the terminology.

Remember years ago when people said our iPhones were listening to us, and everybody said, “Oh no, they’re not listening to you”? Now everybody basically accepts that our technology is constantly collecting information about us.

These systems are not just reading license plates.

They can capture information about your vehicle, including the color, markings, bumper stickers, and other identifying characteristics. Depending on the system and how it is integrated with other technology, these networks can also be used to track where vehicles go and build patterns of movement.

So please, let’s stop pretending these are just license plate readers, because they are much more than that.

With that said, there are cities that have rolled this technology out extensively, and law enforcement agencies argue that it helps solve crimes and recover stolen vehicles. We have also seen auto theft fall significantly in some places over the past few years.

Does surveillance technology help prevent or solve crime? A lot of police officers will tell you yes.

But now we get to the much bigger moral and constitutional question.

Do we turn the United States into a surveillance state and sacrifice liberty for security?

This is the part that matters.

The fact that we are even asking whether police should need a warrant to access this data shows how complicated this gets and how much we are willing to sacrifice for safety.

You need a warrant in many circumstances to search somebody’s phone. So what about data collected by a camera?

Is it public information? Is it private information? Who owns the data? How long is it stored? Who can access it? Can different agencies access the same database? Can private companies aggregate it? Can that information be shared or sold… by the company or data brokers?

Those questions matter a hell of a lot more than simply asking, “Did this camera help solve a crime?”

Because once you start aggregating massive amounts of location and vehicle data into centralized databases that can potentially be accessed by multiple institutions and agencies, you are talking about something much bigger than crime prevention.

You’re talking about surveillance infrastructure.

Then we get into the Fourth Amendment, privacy protections, warrants, data retention, oversight, and the checks and balances surrounding all of it.

So, again, the real question is not whether a camera can help solve a crime.

The real question is how much liberty we are willing to sacrifice for security, and what protections have to exist before we cross the line into becoming a surveillance state.

Question 17: Local Police and Federal Immigration Enforcement

Question: What role should Ohio’s local police and sheriffs play in federal immigration enforcement, and should state law require, allow, or limit that cooperation?

Matt’s Take

I think it was the League of Women Voters forum for the 16th State House race where I heard what I thought was the best answer to this question:

Why are we putting our law enforcement officers in the position where they have to decide which laws they are going to enforce and which agencies they are going to work with to enforce those laws?

We don’t tell police officers that they shouldn’t work with the FBI if they need help. We don’t tell them not to work with the National Guard, FEMA, or other government agencies when cooperation is necessary.

So, in my opinion, this is an interesting situation where we are putting the responsibility on individual law enforcement agencies and asking them, in some form, “Could you enforce this?” or “Should you enforce this?”

Their job is not to interpret the law. Their job is to enforce the law.

Interpretation belongs to the courts.

If the State of Ohio wants to push back against a federal requirement or a federal enforcement policy, then the state should make that decision at the state level. That means the governor and the state legislature should take a unified position that applies across the state.

But putting that burden individually on the Cleveland Police Department, the Cuyahoga County Sheriff, the Bay Village Police Department, the Berea Police Department, or any other local agency complicates their jobs in a way that I think is unfair.

If the state wants to draw that line, then the state should draw it. Local police officers should not be left to decide where that line is.

Question 18: Fair School Funding Plan

Question: Is Ohio’s current school-funding system sustainable, and how should the state fund public schools without continuing to lean so heavily on property taxes?

Matt’s Take

This is where an incumbent always has the high ground in these kinds of discussions.

When you ask a policy question and the sitting representative can come back and say, “Hey, by the way, I sponsored that law,” that’s a real big flex.

Bride gets to do that here with the Fair School Funding Plan.

It immediately changes the dynamic because she isn’t just talking about what she would like to do. She can point to something she actually worked on, sponsored, and helped get into law.

That’s the advantage of being an incumbent in a forum like this. You get to answer with a record instead of just a proposal.

Closing Statements

Matt’s Take

In her closing statement, I really appreciated what Bride said about how this is how we truly take our democracy back: by doing these kinds of forums and actually getting candidates in front of voters.

Bride knows she is heavily favored in this race. But the fact that she still shows up and participates says a lot.

It shows that she cares about the democratic process. It shows that she understands these conversations matter. It gives her more input from the community, and it gives everybody else a better understanding of what is actually happening in the State House.

I respect when somebody doesn’t have to show up, and they do.

You don’t see that nearly as often anymore, on either side of the aisle.

So, much respect for that.

In terms of Robert’s closing statement, he said he’s a problem solver, and I appreciate that.

He talked about fraud issues, lowering costs, lowering taxes, and getting money back to citizens. I like that he wants to get money back to the citizens.

I do think people are being overtaxed, and we’re reaching a point of real strain. If somebody doesn’t seriously address that, I think eventually something is going to break.

So I appreciate him talking about lowering costs, lowering taxes, and putting money back in people’s pockets.

The fraud discussion, though, makes me a little more cautious.

I don’t know how much evidence he has for some of those claims or how large those losses actually are in the context of the overall budget.

And again, I think when it comes to this stuff, direct fraud is probably a much smaller problem than legalized corruption.

That, to me, is the bigger issue.

Complete Transcript

Introduction

Alice Allen: Good evening, everyone.

Welcome to this evening’s candidate forum presented by the Bay Village, Cleveland, Fairview Park, Lakewood, Rocky River, and Westlake/North Olmsted chapters of the League of Women Voters of Greater Cleveland. We’re pleased to welcome all of you here with us tonight.

I’d also like to welcome those who are watching online via the livestream and any folks who are watching the recording, which will be made available on the League of Women Voters of Greater Cleveland YouTube channel.

My name is Alice Allen, and I’m co-chair of the Rocky River chapter of the League. I’d like to thank the candidates in the race for the 23rd Ohio Senate District who are with us tonight. Thank you to the City of Rocky River for the use of this space, and thank you to all the League of Women Voters chapter volunteers who are staffing this event.

In keeping with our longstanding forum tradition, questions for the candidates will be submitted in writing. Everyone should have received a card as you entered this evening to write down your questions for our candidates. When you have a question ready, raise your hand and a runner will come and pick up your card. You can also raise your hand if you need another question card.

We have two League members at the question-sorting table who will be reviewing questions to avoid duplication, to provide a diversity of questions, and to ensure clarity and appropriateness of the questions.

I did want to do a visual demonstration. We had a forum here last night. These were all the questions that we received. We only had time for 17. We expect to get through 13, 14, or 15 tonight. We get a lot of questions and we aren’t able to get through them all.

I do remember that we had several on property tax last night, which got condensed into one question. So, just to give you an idea how that works.

As I stated earlier, we are recording the program for future viewing on YouTube, and I want to let you all know that personal recording during the program is forbidden by League policy. You are invited to view and share the forum in its entirety on YouTube, but we also have a prohibition on sharing segments of the forum on social media.

Finally, we ask for the cooperation of the audience in avoiding expressions of support or opposition to any candidate during today’s program.

Please remember, the purpose of this evening is to hear from the candidates so that each resident might make their own best-informed decision regarding their vote, and any vocal interruption takes time away from the candidates.

Thank you for being here and agreeing to our policies. If you are being disruptive this evening, we will ask you to leave.

I’d like to introduce you to Kathy Hexter. We’re fortunate to have Ms. Hexter as our moderator this evening.

Ms. Hexter serves as the program director for the League of Women Voters of Greater Cleveland and is a member of the Shaker Heights chapter. A public policy analyst with over 35 years of experience, she retired in 2017 from Cleveland State University’s Levin College of Urban Affairs, where she directed research on affordable housing, energy, and community development policy.

In addition to her work with the League, she is a board member of a number of community nonprofits.

Please join me in welcoming Ms. Hexter. Pasted text

Forum Format

Moderator Kathy Hexter: Good evening. Thank you.

Before we begin tonight’s program, I’d like to explain our format. We have two candidates running for the 23rd Ohio Senate District seat: Robert Dintaman and Bride Rose Sweeney.

We will begin our forum with two-minute opening statements by the candidates. The candidates will go in alphabetical order, Mr. Dintaman going first.

We will then continue with questions for each candidate. Each candidate will have one minute to answer each question. We will rotate which candidate answers first. Whoever answered last will answer the next question first.

We have people keeping time here in the front. They will let the candidates know when they have 30 seconds and when they have 15 seconds left. Then they’ll let you know when you’re done.

At the end of the question period, each candidate will give a two-minute closing statement in reverse order, beginning with Ms. Sweeney.

We will take, as Alice said, written questions from the audience. You need to write them on the cards that are on your seat, and people will be around in the audience to collect them.

Opening Statements

Robert Dintaman

Robert Dintaman: Thank you very much. Thank you, everybody, for having me here this evening. I look forward to engaging you in a very thorough discussion. It’s going to be a lot of fun. Hopefully, we get to learn a little bit about each other.

I’m Rob Dintaman. I’m a resident. I’ve lived in Lakewood now about 14 years. I’m originally from Mansfield, Ohio, so I came from down south of this way. I went to law school at Akron. I’ve been a practicing lawyer now for about 30 years. Time is flying.

That’s kind of where I’ve got my experience. I deal with folks. I solve problems on a day-to-day basis. They come into my office, and I talk to folks just like you come in and ask questions. They have issues. I try to resolve them.

I think that’s how I classify my candidacy. I’m going to be an individual who hits the ground running, rolls my sleeves up, goes and talks to you, and tries to figure out what I can do to help and respond in the best way possible.

That’s how I’ve grown my practice and dealt with many folks in this community. It’s been my pleasure to do so for the last 30 years as a practicing lawyer.

I really kind of break my candidacy down into a three-pillar process. Again, I’m nontraditional. I’ve never really run for office. I guess it would be my second time, but I’m not a traditional politician. I’m a business guy. I’m your neighbor. I live in the district.

Obviously, I care about homeownership. Citizens talk to me all the time. I care about property tax reform. That’s my biggest issue.

I’m down there to try to tighten the belt with regard to the budget. I was concerned to see the Medicaid situation, the fraud that happened. That’s healthcare for our citizens in this community. We have to be able to solve that problem.

And really, it’s the data centers that are coming in. I’m fighting that right now. In several areas in Columbus, I’m working with communities with regard to transparency and making that work within our community.

My goal is to work with you. I want to talk to the citizens and be part of this community and represent this community in Columbus.

Bride Rose Sweeney

Bride Rose Sweeney: Good evening, everyone.

I first want to thank the League for hosting this and Robert for agreeing to do this, and most importantly, the people watching, because it really wouldn’t matter if we didn’t have an audience that cared about making sure they knew both of their candidates.

I’m State Representative Bride Rose Sweeney. It has been the honor of my life to be a state representative, in some capacity, for the West Side of Cuyahoga County, because I’ve had about three different districts in my tenure. That’s not how that should work.

I was born and raised in the West Park area and had the crazy idea that, at 25 years old, a young woman could run for office, be the youngest member of the General Assembly and the first woman to represent her community at the Statehouse. Not just that, but actually do something different, actually get things done, and put the people first.

I believe I have done that. I’m a Democrat. It is not the most fun thing working in a state controlled by the party that’s opposite of yours, but I’ve focused on getting things done.

I was told by plenty of people in my own party that it wasn’t possible, and I’ve passed over 14 bills, all of them meaningful, all of them with Republicans.

One of them was the largest change to our public schools in the history of Ohio that set us on a pathway to constitutional funding for them. I have passed bills to end police quotas, to stop police officers from being forced into being revenue generators to fill budget holes, and to help disabled kids ensure that they’re getting lifetime supports regardless of the county that they live in.

That is what’s possible when you have candidates who are willing to focus on other people.

There are so many more things that we can do to make our state better when we are actually focusing on people rather than Twitter likes and our differences.

So I hope to continue to do that in the Senate.

Question 1: Representing a Large and Diverse District

Moderator Kathy Hexter: You will be representing a very large district, running basically from Bay Village all the way across the City of Cleveland to Euclid. How would you balance the competing economic, infrastructure, and diverse community needs within your district?

Bride Rose Sweeney

Bride Rose Sweeney: It’s an excellent question, and it becomes even harder when you are looking at the realities of our upcoming budget.

I do not believe that our current budget has been funded responsibly, and we are going to have massive holes in multiple budgets that we face next year. That means it’s even more difficult when you have such a diverse district that has different needs.

But it’s about figuring out the things that uniquely tie those districts together and finding different solutions to help the inner-city core without leaving your surrounding suburbs behind.

We also can’t look at communities like Rocky River or Bay Village and say, “Oh, therefore, they don’t need anything.”

It’s about fairness. There is no such thing as a one-size-fits-all solution, and you need the resources to do so.

Robert Dintaman

Robert Dintaman: It is a big district, and obviously there are going to be differences of opinion about how things should be done. I think that makes the district great.

So, get out in the field. Let’s talk to these folks. That’s how I approach my practice. I try to talk to everybody. I try to understand what they need, and sometimes those needs are going to clash.

The idea is to try to find common ground. That would be going down and figuring out, hey, how do we fix the budget?

I have problems with my own party right now and how they’re doing things. I’m not going to go down there and make friends. I’m going to go down there and work.

I’m going to get out in the community. I’ll talk to folks. I’ll find out how we can get common ground. I think that’s the main thing. How do we work together as a community? How do we work together to address different needs of different communities?

I think it can be accomplished. Just talk to people. I like talking to folks. I’m a lawyer. I like to talk all the time.

Getting out in the field, talking to my neighbors, talking to everybody, I look forward to the challenge. I think it’s something I could bring to the table.

I’m going to engage the community. I’m going to figure out what they need. I’m going to work together to bring us together.

Question 2: Legislative Priority

Moderator Kathy Hexter: If elected, what is one piece of legislation you would most want to introduce or co-sponsor?

Robert Dintaman

Robert Dintaman: I think my number one issue is to protect the family home.

Citizens are concerned about property taxes. I think Columbus has done some things, but they’ve not done enough. I think we need to get down there and solve the problem.

We understand that property taxes fund certain things, and we need that to be done, but how do we protect our seniors? How do we protect our citizens?

That home is the bedrock of family life. We need to protect it.

My goal is to work with Democrats, Republicans, whoever, to get that done and go further. Let’s reform the property tax code. Let’s protect the family home.

I think that’s going to be one of my biggest pillars when I roll up my sleeves. That’s what I’m going to promise to this community and to this district.

I’m going to go down there and get that done and make sure it works the right way for the folks in the community.

Bride Rose Sweeney

Bride Rose Sweeney: It’s a hard answer because there’s no shortage of problems that still need to be fixed.

But I would say, undoubtedly, the biggest issue that is most important to me and, I think, this community is continuing the work of making sure the State of Ohio is paying its fair share to our public schools.

As I mentioned, I was the lead sponsor of the biggest change that actually gave us a formula that was connected to what it actually costs to educate students.

It’s my biggest accomplishment. I’ll be proud of it the day I die, but I’ll be the first one to tell you it doesn’t mean a single thing if it’s not funded.

In the next budget, it is not just about making sure kids have a quality education regardless of where they’re living. That’s a great goal, but it’s also about making sure that this is connected to our property taxes.

[The next sentence is unclear in the source transcript.]

Funding our schools is helping students, and it is also helping lower property taxes.

Question 3: Most Challenging Aspect of Serving in the Senate

Moderator Kathy Hexter: What do you anticipate will be the most challenging aspect of serving as an Ohio State Senator?

Bride Rose Sweeney

Bride Rose Sweeney: One of the most challenging aspects, especially in my role for at least the past five years, has been being the lead person for my party on the Finance Committee, which is responsible for, I think, the most serious job a lawmaker can do, which is spend all of your money and decide where it goes.

In the state budget, we don’t have the same luxury as the federal government. We have to pass a balanced budget. So when money is not there, you either have to raise revenues or make cuts.

I don’t care what party you’re in. Both of those things are tough.

We are having a lot of discussions about a gas holiday. It is undoubtable that people need relief because of the issues of the Iran war.

But I haven’t heard one lawmaker talk about how this upcoming transportation budget is going to be a fiscal cliff. We will not have revenues to meet the current demand, to the tune of, over the next 10 years, a $13 billion backlog.

These are real problems, and there are tough decisions regardless of who’s in the legislature.

Robert Dintaman

Robert Dintaman: To me, the most challenging part is trying to get our state budget under control.

It’s $100 billion, and we’re still having shortfalls. Why are we not getting this under control? Why did we watch $50 million get lost in the Medicaid system? That’s funding for our patients. Those are our people in our community.

We’ve got to get control of this stuff. We can’t be having shortfalls. We can’t have things going by the wayside.

We’ve got to figure out how to rein in spending but also support the things that need to be supported.

There’s got to be a way to do it a little bit better without wasting the money that our citizens need, and not just growing the budget because it needs to be grown or raising taxes or whatever it is to fill a shortfall.

It’s finding the right balance, making adjustments, reprioritizing where the money is spent, and reining in spending.

Question 4: Long-Term Budget Stability, Tax Reform, and Economic Development

Moderator Kathy Hexter: You both mentioned the budget. Let’s dive into that a little bit more.

With a four-year term in the Senate, how would you approach long-term state budget stability, tax reform, and statewide economic development that go beyond the short term?

Robert Dintaman

Robert Dintaman: I think it’s getting control of our long-term planning, sitting down and saying, okay, how are we going to do this? Map it out.

We all run our households that way. Start figuring out what’s going to happen the next year. Commit to planning how we’re going to spend, what needs to be adjusted, reduce spending if we have to, but again, fund the things that are important.

I think it’s just projecting better, sitting down, and working with both Democrats and Republicans.

That’s my goal. Let’s get this done. Get the future figured out together and figure out how we’re going to do that.

Again, just write it down. A piece of paper. That’s how I look at it. That’s how I run my office. I think that’s how we run our households.

Keep it simple. Let’s just figure out what the priorities are, get it worked out, work together to do that, and keep Ohio moving forward.

Bride Rose Sweeney

Bride Rose Sweeney: The State of Ohio does not have a spending problem. It has a problem with paying attention only to special interests and the wealthiest people in the state.

In the past 15 years, the State of Ohio has decided to give exemptions to the tune of $17 billion.

I’m a big believer that if we can cut taxes, we should do so. But I believe in cutting taxes to make sure seniors can stay in their homes. I believe in cutting taxes for individuals who don’t get paid family leave or have to care for a senior or an aging loved one.

If you look at that $17 billion, the average person in our top brackets got $70,000 back, while the lower brackets got a tax increase of $32.

The issue is who we’re paying attention to, and because of that, that is why we don’t have enough revenue. It is not that we are spending too much, because we are in the bottom half of the majority of indicators for the health of our people.

Question 5: H2Ohio and Lake Erie

Moderator Kathy Hexter: H2Ohio, the state’s water-quality program, is funded through the state budget, and Governor DeWine leaves office in January.

Should the legislature keep, change, or expand H2Ohio? How do you think Ohio should work to protect Lake Erie’s water from being moved outside the Great Lakes region?

Bride Rose Sweeney

Bride Rose Sweeney: This is one of the areas where, as a proud Democrat, I’m proud to say that our Republican Governor Mike DeWine has led on an issue.

It was a crisis when he came into office, where you had cities in the Maumee Basin that went without clean drinking water because of the neglect of government not protecting the most basic and most important resource we have in the State of Ohio, our Great Lake.

This was a massive effort, H2Ohio, that the budget I voted against cut by over $270 million, when we just didn’t meet our own benchmark that we agreed to with Canada, Michigan, and the other Great Lakes.

We are the state that’s falling behind. I support Governor DeWine’s funding and continue to push my Republican colleagues to make sure that we are not falling behind and reversing all of the efforts that were made in a bipartisan way to protect our drinking water.

Robert Dintaman

Robert Dintaman: The Great Lakes area is an important resource. It’s an important part of our community. I think it needs to be protected.

We need to do whatever we can to keep it as a resource. We need to develop, but we need to protect.

I think using H2Ohio is a good piece of legislation to do that. Let’s keep it reasonable and above board. Let’s keep the lake safe. Let’s protect our water.

I think it kind of goes along with how the data-center stuff is going right now, too. That’s all about water and its use in these communities. Are they damaging the water in those little communities? Is it staying clean?

I would be for that. I want to protect Lake Erie. I think it’s an important resource in our community.

Again, it’s being reasonable, just like anything else we’re developing, but it’s an important part of our community, and we need support in Columbus to protect Lake Erie.

Question 6: State Environmental Standards

Moderator Kathy Hexter: As federal air and water regulations change, what role, if any, should or can Ohio play in setting its own environmental standards?

Robert Dintaman

Robert Dintaman: I think it goes hand in hand with what we just talked about with the Lake Erie region.

We’re going to try to protect our own environment. We want our air and our communities to be safe. I think keeping air quality clean is important.

That’s sensible regulation. Again, it goes to noise pollution. It’s all kinds of pollution.

You’re dealing with the data-center problem that I’m dealing with right now. I think it’s the same thing.

We’ve got communities dealing with these big monstrosities coming in. They’re causing noise and other types of pollution. I think that’s just a small scale where we’re regulating the environment in that community.

I think it’s important.

Again, we’re talking about being reasonable to the community, not hamstringing the community, protecting the community, working together as a partnership and as a community.

It’s everybody working on the same page, coming to common ground as it needs to be to make sure that we protect the most important resources in Ohio.

Bride Rose Sweeney

Bride Rose Sweeney: I think that with a lot of issues such as this, obviously the federal government and the state have a role.

The federal government standards should be the bare minimum, and we should ensure that the State of Ohio and local communities, who have the most incentive to make sure that the air we are individually breathing is safe for us and safe for our children, have a role.

We have seen some back and forth from the federal government depending on who’s in the administration.

Under the Biden administration, it emboldened local communities and gave resources and grants for local communities to actually get testing of their own that they could use to hold polluters accountable.

In the past state budget that I was proud to vote against, they actually tried to take that ability away from our own local governments to be able to test our own air.

Thankfully, some of the EPA groups are suing, and I hope they’re successful because it needs to be in local hands.

Question 7: Gas Tax Suspension

Moderator Kathy Hexter: Ms. Sweeney, I think you alluded to the gas-tax suspension earlier. If the gas tax is suspended, what effect will that have on what the state has?

Bride Rose Sweeney

Bride Rose Sweeney: It is undoubtable, because of decisions in Washington, that our gas prices are skyrocketing. It is also undoubtable that people need relief.

I will not support a gas-tax holiday that is not replenished in the ODOT budget because it would be fiscally and morally irresponsible to put a $700 million hole in it when we know a billion dollars is coming in a few months.

I do believe there is the possibility that some of the proposals that have been put out, that we’ve learned about and have not seen, are asking to dip into the rainy-day fund.

We have not done that since the Great Recession, where we barely kept the state government and schools’ lights on.

It should not be a willy-nilly campaign promise.

Because we are likely to vote on this in a few days and no one will have seen this legislation, I don’t think anyone who votes on that will have any guarantee that it will lower gas prices.

I unfortunately don’t get to set the agenda, but I will be making sure that our ODOT budget is saved to the best of my ability and that those funds actually go to the people who need them the most, and not just a handout to gas companies.

Robert Dintaman

Robert Dintaman: Obviously, gas prices are a problem.

I like the idea of a gas holiday. Obviously, you don’t want to jeopardize the highway funds that would be part of that.

I think there are ways to plan the budget. There’s got to be a way to do it.

This is how I would go down and try to find a way to do that. Find people who can get smart about it. We can make these types of things work to help average, everyday citizens get to work.

I think lowering gas prices is helpful, and doing it in a responsible, reasonable way.

I’m not for just doing everything immediately. But again, being responsible and looking for ways to do it.

There’s got to be a way in that budget to replace the funds if we decide to do the gas holiday without jeopardizing our highways and replacing our roads in the community.

Question 8: Mail-In Ballot Grace Period

Moderator Kathy Hexter: The state legislature recently eliminated the grace period for the return of mail-in ballots.

Would you support legislation to change this? Why or why not?

Robert Dintaman

Robert Dintaman: I think one of the basic promises of our democracy is free and fair elections. I want that to be done in the most transparent and free way possible.

I think you have to have guardrails on it. You can’t just have unlimited elections in terms of every day, 30 days, 40 days, 50 days. I understand that there has to be some kind of limit on it. That’s part of the process.

I think you want to make sure it’s the most reasonable outcome, that we understand the outcome, and just make sure we have the right guardrails on it and that we protect the vote.

We don’t want to disenfranchise, but we do want to protect it and make it fair. We want to make sure it’s understandable and that we know what the outcome is without undermining our elections.

Bride Rose Sweeney

Bride Rose Sweeney: I opposed that bill in the legislature and have opposed every single anti-voter bill that has come before us.

We have a Secretary of State who continuously says, time and time again, that voter fraud is 0.00008%. It is basically nonexistent.

Yet the policies that come out of Columbus are all under the guise of protecting an election that, by our own Republican measures, doesn’t need protecting.

To me, the only explanation and the only real outcome of these policies is that eligible voters with eligible ballots are thrown out.

That is the exact outcome.

Because if you postmark your vote-by-mail ballot and, because the federal government decided to cut the post office, it gets there a few days later, why should you be punished for something you couldn’t control, on something that has been working and has proven to have never been abused and to have never swayed elections?

That should stop.

Question 9: AI-Generated Election Deception

Moderator Kathy Hexter: We recently sponsored a forum on citizenship in the AI era.

Do you think Ohio has sufficient safeguards in place to protect elections from AI-generated deception?

What steps, if any, should Ohio take to protect elections? And what is your opinion on requiring labels on AI-generated campaign ads or penalizing deepfakes meant to mislead users?

Bride Rose Sweeney

Bride Rose Sweeney: We currently have absolutely no laws that address that, so the answer is definitely no.

However, I have been encouraged that this issue has at least appeared in a bipartisan sense. I have not been able to look at the bills, but there does seem to be a real concern that there is not a handle on this.

However, what gives me little confidence is that over the past 15 years, this legislature has gutted the Ohio Elections Commission and has essentially legalized lying in elections.

You can legally lie in Ohio [unclear], and we specifically won’t pass my anti-corruption act that would mandate disclosure on every campaign ad that’s going to your house.

I believe everyone in Ohio deserves to know who is sending their mail and who is funding them, regardless of whether it’s AI or not, and I cannot get that.

But given the intensity of the issue, I’m hopeful that maybe we can make some progress specifically on the AI issues.

Robert Dintaman

Robert Dintaman: AI is everywhere. It surrounds us, and everything that we do is becoming more and more prevalent. I think we’re all trying to get a grasp on it.

I would agree that we need to start coming up with reasonable guardrails. Protect ourselves, protect our vote, protect what we receive in the mail.

Obviously, we’re inundated with a lot of ads. Look at Facebook. We’re going to see a lot of this stuff that’s AI-generated.

I would work in a bipartisan way. I would want to have safeguards that identify these things.

I think it’s important to know where you’re getting the mail and where you’re getting these ads.

AI is going so fast, and keeping up with it is hard enough as it is. So, to create guardrails and reasonable and responsible controls, I would be in favor of that.

I will work with everyone in a bipartisan way down in Columbus to make sure that we protect our communities as AI grows and not let it get out of control.

Question 10: Ranked-Choice Voting

Moderator Kathy Hexter: What do you think about ranked-choice voting?

Robert Dintaman

Robert Dintaman: I grew up in Ohio. We’ve run elections a certain way for a long time.

To me, I don’t think ranked-choice voting is a sensible way to do it. I would just stick with what we have.

I think the way we handle elections is fine. We’re working on making it better and making it fairer. I would not be in favor of it.

I’ll always listen to anything that’s brought to my attention, but I wouldn’t see a reason to change something that we’ve been doing for a while in that kind of way.

It seems like that would be a substantial change in how people vote and how we conduct our elections, and we want to make sure that’s done correctly.

Bride Rose Sweeney

Bride Rose Sweeney: I believe that we shouldn’t make our policies based on being afraid of change and being afraid of new ideas.

When the legislature decided, I believe last year, to pass a bill banning local municipalities from allowing them to decide how they conduct their elections, at that time there wasn’t one city in the state that had actually fully implemented it.

That attitude of being so afraid of something that you don’t understand won’t even allow the experiment to happen.

I’m a big believer in local control and that not everything is one-size-fits-all.

If one community wanted to have their elections run that way, or have a certain issue run that way to see if it actually does what it’s promised, which is to have more voices in the system and more people feeling that they have more options, let’s see if it can actually work.

How can we know if it works if we’re never able to utilize it at the local-government level?

At the end of the day, if that community wants it, they should have it.

I voted against that prohibition.

Question 11: Business Tax Incentives and Accountability

Moderator Kathy Hexter: Ohio offers businesses tax breaks and other incentives to relocate or expand here.

How would you weigh the benefits of these incentives against their costs to taxpayers, and what accountability measures, if any, would you support?

Bride Rose Sweeney

Bride Rose Sweeney: There was a recent audit by our Republican auditor of one of the largest tax credits that we give to businesses under the Department of Development. It’s called the Job Creation Tax Credit.

The nature of that credit is important, and it’s important to have those tools, but I would require the same level of scrutiny that we do with our public-assistance programs for programs benefiting people who should have the best ability to align with the rules and regulations.

That audit found that 75% of those who got your taxpayer money in some way or form did not actually meet the jobs that they signed up to create, and the majority of them got zero clawbacks.

State funding is serious.

Development doesn’t just happen. Government can be a tool to allow it to happen. It shouldn’t be the thing that is creating it, but it should have accountability and transparency just like any other government program.

And it has the least.

Robert Dintaman

Robert Dintaman: I’m in favor. I want development to come to the state, and I think taxes and other tax breaks do that.

Again, I think it goes back to being reasonable about anything that we do to develop.

You do have to have some kind of accountability regarding how it is being used, where it is being used, and whether it is doing the things that it says it is supposed to do.

I go back to what I’m dealing with now on data centers. A lot of that stuff involved tax breaks that turned out to be a big problem for communities because you bring these things in and you don’t regulate them.

A lot of that was done under the cover of darkness with these NDAs.

I think that’s just a microcosm of not paying attention to how business development on the tax-break side is brought into a community. The community was kind of left out in certain situations.

You want safe development. You want to incentivize people, but you do want to be reasonable about how we’re paying attention to how it’s being used.

Are they doing what they say they’re doing? Are they working with the community? Are they making it beneficial?

Question 12: Small Businesses and the Business Income Tax Deduction

Moderator Kathy Hexter: What would you do to help small businesses in our district, and would you change the state’s small-business income-tax deduction?

Robert Dintaman

Robert Dintaman: Small business is the backbone, I believe, of our economy, our state, and our local communities.

I consider myself a small business in the sense that I work for myself.

I think that’s the way the community grows. That’s how the community itself becomes more interactive. It gets people more engaged with the community and helps the community develop and grow.

I would foster that. I would want more incentives to do that.

I would create greater opportunities to allow businesses to develop in smaller communities, maybe communities that don’t have the opportunity, and maybe offer grants and more money to do that.

My goal would be to enrich the small-business community. I want those folks to thrive.

I think it makes communities better. I think it engages with the community. I think it makes the community grow.

Again, it goes back to being a partnership that allows everyone to work together, benefit, and grow, and not just keep it to the big outsiders.

It’s the folks here who can do it and grow it.

Bride Rose Sweeney

Bride Rose Sweeney: I think it’s important. Sometimes we use the word “business” as a monolith.

Especially in my time in the legislature, I don’t think the State of Ohio has done enough for true small businesses that really can be the lifeblood of our communities.

There are small businesses that are under real strain, mostly because of state policies that hold them back at the expense of what we’re doing for the big guys and gals.

But there is something called the Business Income Tax Deduction.

This is something that, if it was actually structured for what it was said it was for, was supposed to help businesses grow their companies and hire new employees.

Yet the vast majority of people who take advantage of this were not who it was intended for. We call it the [unclear] loophole.

You basically just restructure your business so everyone is their own company, and you don’t pay any income taxes up to $250,000.

It costs $2 billion, and it is the first area I would rein in.

So it goes to the rights of all businesses.

Question 13: Data Centers and Local Control

Moderator Kathy Hexter: We’ve already touched a lot on data centers, but I want to ask a specific data-center question.

How much say should local communities have in approving data-center projects?

Could Ohio pause new data-center approvals while it studies the effects on groundwater and the electric grid? Why or why not?

Bride Rose Sweeney

Bride Rose Sweeney: Absolutely. Local individuals should have a say in what goes on in their community.

There are only a few times you’ll get me to believe that local governments shouldn’t necessarily have control. Sometimes, if you just had local governments dealing with energy policy, it would never move forward.

But when you’re talking about an area that has real concerns about the impacts to that community, the health of that community, and the taxes of that community, it is not just a nice thing to do. It should be an essential part of the process.

As the state government that does have the expertise and the tools, I don’t think it’s just something we should allow.

We should be helping our local governments be able to go toe-to-toe and make sure that they’re not taking a bad deal.

You’re leveling the playing field when they’re negotiating with some of the biggest companies in the world.

Robert Dintaman

Robert Dintaman: I think it’s been a big problem with the whole data-center movement. I think we’ve left a lot of our local communities out.

That’s what I’m dealing with now. I’ve got several cases in Columbus I’m dealing with in that area.

The local communities were kind of left in the dark, finding out that there are NDAs involved where they’re not disclosing all the plans and what they’re going to do.

They’re rushing these things through with emergency legislation, where folks in town halls sitting here like this don’t get their voice and they’re finding out later what’s going to happen.

They’re building these big things without any community input.

I think you’ve got to develop these things by talking to the folks who are actually going to live by these things or interact with these things on a daily basis.

It’s a concern. I think it’s gone the wrong way.

That’s why this has been one of the biggest issues I’ve been dealing with over the last year, and it’s going to be a priority, a pillar of what I’m going to be looking for: data-center transparency.

These guys have got to work with the folks in the community when they’re going to build these things.

They’ve got to get the input. They’ve got to make sure it’s safe. If folks get the information and work together, then it works.

Question 14: State-Level AI Regulation

Moderator Kathy Hexter: Of course, the reason we have data centers is because of the proliferation of AI.

Some states have passed their own AI safety and transparency laws. Others argue AI regulation should be left to the federal government.

What role, if any, should Ohio play?

Robert Dintaman

Robert Dintaman: I think we have to participate in the regulation.

We’re talking about local communities that are going to live with it. I think it’s important that the folks who are going to have these things around them have their voices heard.

If all the information comes out and they discuss all of the topics and understand what’s going to happen, then, by having community input, we build something that they can live with, that fits within the community, and that works well with the state.

I’m not saying, “Hey, we can’t have development.” We don’t want to end progress.

But I think it has to be developed reasonably. It’s working with the folks who are going to interact with it on a daily basis.

When they’re putting it near farmland or housing developments out in the middle of nowhere, they’re not putting it in big cities, per se. They’re putting it next to folks who live in these rural communities.

If we’re going to do that, when folks want it and they’ve given their input, then so be it.

But let’s make sure the development is almost like a partnership, that the community is getting its say and folks understand what they’re doing.

Bride Rose Sweeney

Bride Rose Sweeney: In a perfect system, it is the federal government’s job to deal exactly with these types of issues.

When you’re dealing with technology like the internet or AI that is hard to control within one state, and you have a 50-state patchwork, it can make it impractical to actually enforce.

However, the federal government has not done it.

It is probably my biggest pet peeve when somebody comes into my office and tells me, “You guys shouldn’t do anything about this emerging issue.”

I had an individual tell me that one time while the federal government was currently in the longest shutdown they had been in, and I said, “That is absurd.”

There’s actually a statistic that once a certain number of states regulate something, it triggers the feds to act.

So even if it doesn’t fully make sense, taking that step, challenging, and pushing that issue forward is actually what makes the federal government truly get its hands on an issue such as controlling these sorts of technologies.

Question 15: AI and Job Displacement

Moderator Kathy Hexter: Sticking with AI, what role, if any, should the state play in helping workers whose jobs are changed or eliminated by automation and AI?

Bride Rose Sweeney

Bride Rose Sweeney: I think it should be the role of the state.

When you think about what the purpose of a state government is, it is to be the arbiter of these emerging issues.

As much as some people might not like it, AI is here, just like the iPhone and the internet.

Instead of hiding from it, it is possible to have these types of technologies not disrupt our lives.

The only entities capable of addressing that are entities like state and federal governments.

I think it’s such a serious responsibility, from how it’s being implemented into our classrooms to how it’s being implemented into the workforce.

If not, it could have undue harm, not just to the workers, but to our entire communities, if that is not the state’s job.

Robert Dintaman

Robert Dintaman: Clearly, AI is here to stay.

It’s going to continue to enter every sector of the workforce. It’s going to continue to automate many jobs.

A lot of different sectors are going to be impacted. The legal profession is impacted by it. It’s everywhere.

So what do we do?

Is it job retraining? Is it trying to come up with a way to figure out how people can find a niche in what they do? Learn the AI, work with it, maybe repurpose the job in that sense?

Maybe it’s working with our colleges and universities to try to come up with programs and developments that teach us to work with AI, become a partner with it, and then come up with our own ideas that may work.

It’s a tough situation. It’s going to be here to stay, and we’re going to have to work with it.

My job is to try to help folks figure that out together, and then some of the legislation can work together to get that done.

Question 16: Automatic License Plate Readers / Flock Cameras

Moderator Kathy Hexter: Many Ohio communities now use automatic license plate reader cameras.

Should state law require police to get a warrant before searching the data these cameras collect? Why or why not?

Robert Dintaman

Robert Dintaman: This is a tough issue. I deal with this. This is something I deal with on a daily basis on the legal team.

You’ve got these cameras out here that collect a lot of data. Everything is on camera nowadays.

I don’t know if I would go as far as to say a warrant. I want things reasonably protected.

I think there are some uses and benefits to communities, but again, we just have to have reasonable guardrails so it’s not being abused.

It would be just like license plates or anything else with different types of cameras. You have to make sure it’s being protected and not being abused.

Again, I don’t want to hamstring our law enforcement in our communities.

There are benefits to it. There are benefits for lost family members, cases, and solving crimes.

But I guess I just don’t want to go as far as requiring a warrant. I want reasonable safeguards, pictures not being misused, and the people who use it being properly trained in the technology.

Bride Rose Sweeney

Bride Rose Sweeney: The Flock-camera issue is one of these issues that I think is just so fascinating because, as more and more people learn about it, you see such a unique demographic on the political spectrum.

People who usually can be completely opposed are together fighting the same thing, and you can see that in the legislature.

Yet we’ve had absolutely no hearings, even though there are about six or seven different versions of how we could actually do this.

To the specific question of whether it should require a warrant, I just don’t have enough information.

But the thing I have had no one disagree with is that there should be a standard.

Maybe the standard should be a warrant. But in the case of a child abduction, I don’t know how quickly that works.

So we have to make sure we meet the most immediate needs for these cameras, but we have seen that, without regulations, they have been abused.

We know about it. The majority of people in Ohio and lawmakers agree with [unclear], yet for some reason we can’t get a hearing.

Question 17: Local Police and Federal Immigration Enforcement

Moderator Kathy Hexter: What role, if any, should Ohio’s local police and sheriffs play in federal immigration enforcement?

Should state law require, allow, or limit that cooperation?

Bride Rose Sweeney

Bride Rose Sweeney: This is a great question.

I think you could answer this in the pure political sense that if there is a time for rightful and lawful immigration duties and fulfillment, then the answer is yes.

But what we have seen has not been lawful, and it’s not something that you should be proud of.

I challenge the notion that, especially with the entities that we control, such as the police forces from your local cities, the taxes that you pay to pay their salaries should go toward something that a lot of us believe is not following our laws.

So I think saying yes or no on that is really indicative of exactly what policies we’re putting forward.

But I do believe it’s the state’s job to push back when they believe that something is being pushed by the federal government, because that’s kind of the checks and balances that we have.

Robert Dintaman

Robert Dintaman: This is a tough issue. It’s at the forefront most of the time.

How do you balance community safety with the rights of individuals? It’s something that we have to deal with on a regular basis.

The way I look at it, we go back to reasonable safeguards.

We want to make sure we protect our communities. We want to make sure that we support law enforcement and make sure that they’re working with us to do that.

We don’t want abuses. That’s not what anybody wants.

With regard to the immigration question, it kind of goes the same way.

How do we interact with our community? How is it reasonable? How is it safe?

Again, protect our communities and make sure we work with all of our law enforcement and the state to make sure that we do this in the most reasonable way possible and don’t do things that harm individual rights, but also make sure that our communities are protected and safe.

Question 18: Fair School Funding Plan

Moderator Kathy Hexter: This is my last question before I turn it over to you for closing remarks.

I want to talk about education and school funding.

The bipartisan Fair School Funding Plan that passed in 2021 has never been fully funded, leaving local districts to rely ever more heavily on property taxes to fund schools.

Is this sustainable? And how should the state fund its public schools?

Robert Dintaman

Robert Dintaman: Obviously, the big issue for me is I don’t want our citizens to lose their homes and be burdened with property taxes.

I like the idea of the Fair School Funding Plan. I like that.

The problem is we’ve got to figure out ways in our budget to fund our schools.

I don’t want property taxes to be leaned on. I don’t want people to bear that burden.

My job is to go down and work with the folks in Columbus and get the teeth of the Fair School Funding Plan together, get it working again, and look for reasonable ways to fund schools.

Make the state step up and do its job. Don’t rely on our local citizens. Don’t rely on the overuse of property taxes so people don’t lose their homes.

That’s what I do not want to see.

Again, that’s my issue. I’m at the forefront of that.

That’s what I’m going to go do: get down there, make sure that we get this issue tackled, and again, not lean on our citizens’ homes.

Bride Rose Sweeney

Bride Rose Sweeney: Whoever asked that, thank you. This is my favorite topic.

This is the plan I’ve been talking about that I was proud to be the sponsor of that became law in 2021.

Whoever asked that is paying attention, because the question of state sustainability was something that the Speaker of the House said as to why he wasn’t going to fund the plan. He said it was unsustainable.

I reject the notion that it could even be unsustainable when the entire basis of that plan was not what Bride Sweeney thinks it should be funded at.

It is what the Republican Department of Education funded based on third-party studies of objective measures of what it actually costs to teach kids in Ohio.

It is the most comprehensive study that’s ever been done in the state.

So when you say it’s unsustainable, what they’re really saying is they do not want to pay the cost of education, and they haven’t proven that.

The cost in order to fully fund the plan last year could have been paid for by the flat tax that they gave away of $1.6 billion, not mentioning the billion dollars that they gave to sports teams.

The problem is priorities, not that we don’t have enough funding.

And it should never be unsustainable when that is the measure.

Closing Statements

Bride Rose Sweeney

Bride Rose Sweeney: Again, I just want to thank all of you for, one, the very insightful questions, and for having this.

I think this is truly how we take our democracy back: continuing to do these types of forums.

Maybe I’m delusional, but I’ve genuinely never been more hopeful for the future of our state.

Obviously, there’s a certain person I want to be governor, but I still have hope even if my non-preferred candidate gets in there, because in my time over the past eight years, I have even evolved myself on what is possible when you send people to actually get things done.

No one thought that, in a Republican supermajority, in the last budget under the DeWine era, we would give the most amount of money in the history of Ohio to public transportation.

That often doesn’t get the news.

But it is possible for really bad things to be happening and, at the same time, really good things can also happen.

To me, the difference is who you send to represent you: people who are focusing on people over politics, party, and Twitter likes.

That is what I’ve been doing, and I hope to continue to do it.

I don’t want to be Pollyanna about, “Oh, you can just fix the world by just working on the things you agree with.”

I think it’s just as important, especially as a member of the opposition party down in Columbus, to hold the powerful accountable, as I believe in states where it’s the reverse.

Our democracy does not function if you do not have accountability.

Having real accountability means more than just giving a floor speech about how unfair things are.

In my very first year in office, as a 26-year-old, the youngest lawmaker in the State of Ohio, I decided to challenge a Republican Secretary of State.

I challenged him on public records and found that he wrongfully removed eligible voters from the rolls, and he had to restore them.

To be honest, it was really an accident.

But I have found that sometimes incompetency can be that much more devastating than conspiracy.

That work is just as important.

And that is also what I want to continue to do representing you in the Ohio Senate.

Robert Dintaman

Robert Dintaman: I want to thank everyone for having me tonight and having this discussion.

I think it’s important. I’ve enjoyed the time. I’ve enjoyed the questions.

I think it’s what kind of drives democracy. It provides a discussion, gets us involved in how we can make the state better, and keeps us moving forward.

That’s my goal.

As your state senator, if I’m elected, I want to be down there. I want to be a change candidate.

I’m not an average politician. I’m just somebody who does business in the community, like a lot of you folks who live in this community.

You’re my neighbors. I work amongst you.

I want to go down there, roll up my sleeves, and get things done.

I want to work with both sides of the aisle. I’m not beholden to any party.

The job I’ve built, my practice, my life, I’m a problem solver.

I like to listen to folks. I deal with folks on a daily basis, and my job is to listen and hopefully get things done.

It’s my job to talk to all of the folks here in this district, go down, work with you, get your input, and let’s solve these problems together.

Let’s make Ohio better. Let’s keep moving Ohio forward.

There are a lot of serious issues to tackle, budgetary issues, legislative issues, and I want to do that.

I bring a different perspective. I bring an outsider’s perspective.

I’m somebody who is going to be reachable. That’s how I pride my practice.

I like to talk to folks. I like to listen to them. I like to have the engagement, and I try to look for what’s the reasonable solution and work with everybody on an issue.

I’m down there to try to solve their problems.

The pillars of my campaign are very simple.

I want to reform property taxes.

I want to go down there and have projects like data centers be very transparent, working with our local communities and our local partners, and try to make sure things are developed the right way.

I want to close budgetary fraud issues.

I want to get the money back to the citizens and make the state work.

That’s my goal.

I want to work with you, be a partner, be the person who goes down there and gets the job done in a nontraditional way, and be your advocate as your state senator. Pasted text

League of Women Voters Closing

Moderator Kathy Hexter: Thank you again to our candidates for participating in tonight’s forum and to our audience for their close attention and thoughtful questions.

If you’re able, would you stay and speak with the community members who may have additional questions?

This program has been recorded and will be posted on the League of Women Voters of Greater Cleveland YouTube site in the coming days.

For more information on countywide issues and other races that will be on your ballot in November, please visit Vote411.org, the League’s nonpartisan voter guide.

Vote411 is a one-stop shop for election-related information. It provides nonpartisan information including local and statewide issues, candidates, polling locations, election dates and hours, early-voting options, and ID requirements.

If you are not already a League member and you found this event interesting and worthwhile, please consider joining the League.

Thank you. I’ll now turn it back over to Alice.

Alice Allen: Thank you so much.

Again, this program has been recorded and will be posted on YouTube.

Our forum is funded by our nonprofit education fund. So, if you find it valuable to have forums like this, please consider making a donation to the League. We have a donation box and a QR code at the back table.

The League of Women Voters is honored to be part of the nonpartisan Election Protection Coalition, which works year-round to ensure that all voters have an equal opportunity to vote and have that vote count.

Election Protection provides Ohioans from Lake Erie to the Ohio River with nonpartisan information and assistance at all stages of voting, from registration and voting early, absentee, and on Election Day, to overcoming obstacles to the ballot.

Voters can text or call 866-OUR-VOTE to get assistance in real time. There are also hotlines available in Spanish, Arabic, and AAPI languages.

We also need poll monitors to visit the Cuyahoga County Early Vote Center and area polling locations on Election Day to help voters by answering questions and reporting problems so that LWV and our partners can work with election officials to get them resolved.

Every poll monitor will be trained and provided with all the materials they need.

Please join the League of Women Voters of Greater Cleveland and the Election Protection Coalition in helping every eligible Ohioan have their voices heard.

To volunteer or get more information about Election Protection, please visit the table near the door.

Thank you again for coming, and don’t forget to make a voting plan for November 3rd.

Thank you all.

Cleveland.com reported this week that the Metanoia Project does not have enough money to open its seasonal homeless shelter this winter. After nearly 20 years of operation, the entire organization could disappear by the end of the year.

Metanoia needs approximately $250,000 to operate its shelter for six months, from November through April. Last winter, it sheltered as many as 45 people a night.

This one is personal for me.

I Saw This Work Firsthand

I volunteered at Metanoia for one winter season in 2019. I usually worked around the showers, giving people fresh towels, toiletries, socks, underwear and whatever else they needed. I also collected and donated supplies.

My ex-girlfriend and her father, both physicians, have provided pro bono medical care to people experiencing homelessness in Cleveland. Dr. Sweeney also sits on Metanoia’s board. I have been connected to this organization, directly or indirectly, for nearly seven years.

I have seen the good it does.

Metanoia is not just a room filled with beds. It is a low-barrier shelter for people who cannot or will not use the traditional shelter system. Metanoia says guests do not have to meet programming requirements to receive a bed, and they can stay as long as they need. The organization provides meals, clothing, showers, laundry, resource connections and help finding housing, healthcare, employment and recovery services.

The staff bring people inside before the temperature becomes dangerous. They provide dinner, hot showers and clean bedding. More importantly, they treat people like human beings.

The Story I Still Remember

One man I met had been in jail for a couple of months. While he was incarcerated, he could not pay his rent. He lost his apartment, and his belongings were thrown away.

When he was released, he had nothing.

He went directly to Metanoia, where he received a bed and a hot shower. That stability gave him time to look for work. Within a couple of weeks, he found a job on a construction crew. A few weeks later, he was promoted to a supervisory position managing several workers.

His boss respected his work ethic and eventually offered him a place to live in one of his properties. The man saved money, moved out of Metanoia and started rebuilding his life.

Metanoia did not solve every problem for him. It gave him the flexibility, time and safety he needed to solve those problems himself.

I met another man who was working and saving money for an apartment deposit. He needed enough savings and sufficient employment history before a landlord would approve him. Metanoia gave him somewhere safe to sleep while he put those pieces together.

These are failures in the larger system, but Metanoia gave these men an option that worked for them.

Guests repeatedly talked about the shelter’s flexibility. They could keep their belongings with them. They felt safe. They respected the staff, and they believed the staff cared about them.

That is not something you can measure by simply counting how many beds exist somewhere else.

“Other Beds Are Available” Misses the Point

County officials say the traditional shelter system has available beds and that nobody seeking shelter will be turned away.

That does not answer the actual problem.

Some people have been removed from traditional shelters. Others do not feel safe or comfortable in them. Some have partners or pets they will not abandon. Some have possessions they need to keep with them.

Metanoia exists specifically for people who fall through those cracks.

According to the Cleveland.com report, approximately 170 people were counted living outside in August. Cuyahoga County’s only other seasonal shelter can accommodate fewer than 50 people and requires a referral.

The county can say beds exist somewhere else, but that does not mean the people Metanoia serves will use them. Metanoia’s own description of its mission is blunt: its shelter exists primarily to keep people alive when they cannot or will not enter traditional shelters.

In a Cleveland winter, this is potentially a life-or-death distinction.

We Are Talking About $250,000

Metanoia needs approximately $250,000 to operate for the entire six-month winter season.

Its funding has been drying up. According to the reporting, a funding reduction involving the ADAMHS Board cost Metanoia approximately $90,000 annually. The county temporarily provided a $75,000 grant, but that money was not guaranteed for another season.

Metanoia reportedly applied for more than 60 grants this year and was rejected by most of them. The organization is now so financially strained that it cannot afford to pay its executive director beyond this month.

For comparison, Cuyahoga County, Cleveland, EDEN and other partners recently celebrated the $31 million redevelopment of the Norma Herr Center. That project added 26,600 square feet, constructed 103 new beds and provided private rooms, bathrooms, accessibility improvements and other modern amenities. The total capacity will increase from 175 to 203 beds, a net increase of 28.

I am not arguing that the women staying at Norma Herr do not deserve privacy, safety and dignity. They absolutely do.

I am asking why government agencies can assemble $31 million for a major construction project, complete with a ribbon cutting and speeches, while an organization providing up to 45 people a night with shelter, food, showers and essential services cannot find $250,000 to survive another winter.

At its reported operating cost, Metanoia provides six months of shelter for approximately one percent of the Norma Herr redevelopment budget.

That should put this into perspective.

This Is What Our Priorities Look Like

County leaders are asking voters for higher property taxes to fund social services. The proposed Health and Human Services levy alone would renew the existing levy and add another 2.5 mills.

At the same time, Metanoia cannot raise $250,000.

This should be an instructive moment for County Executive Chris Ronayne and every member of County Council.

The county is financially strained. Community organizations are financially strained. The people who normally donate to these organizations are financially strained. Families are dealing with higher property taxes, groceries, insurance, utilities and practically everything else.

The county’s answer cannot always be to raise taxes while small organizations doing essential work are left begging for enough money to survive one more season.

Metanoia represents exactly the kind of service communities need. It does not require tens of millions of dollars in new construction. It works through existing churches and community facilities. It brings together volunteers, medical professionals, advocates and staff members who show up and do the work.

There is no giant new campus. There is no monument for an elected official. There is no need for political theater.

There are just people who have been doing this work for nearly 20 years on a shoestring budget and producing real stories of success.

Do Not Let This Organization Die

Losing Metanoia would mean losing one of only two seasonal shelters serving some of the hardest-to-shelter people in Cuyahoga County.

It would mean fewer beds during a Cleveland winter.

It would mean people remaining outside who will not enter the traditional shelter system, regardless of how many times county officials insist that other beds are technically available.

It could mean people dying from exposure.

I am putting this on everyone’s radar because Metanoia deserves to continue. County leaders, foundations, businesses and private donors should be working right now to find the money necessary to keep its doors open.

If you can help, donate directly to the Metanoia Project.

This organization helped people when they had nowhere else to go. It gave them food, shelter, dignity and the breathing room necessary to rebuild their lives.

Cuyahoga County should not let it disappear over $250,000.

Stay Angry.

Yesterday was the League of Women Voters forum for the District 16 State House race between Democrat Scott DiMauro and Republican Sofia Tjotjos. This was a very interesting forum, and I’m going to go through it.

First, I’m going to give you my reaction to the candidates’ opening statements.

After that, I’m going to give you a TL;DR explaining the central message from each candidate, along with my comments on each question.

Finally, I’ve cleaned up the transcript of the questions and answers, with the help of ChatGPT, so you can read what the candidates actually said without having to sit through the entire forum and without my comments or paraphrasing of their answers.

You can watch the forum here:

My Initial Reaction

First, I want to say that it was a pleasure to watch both of these candidates in the League of Women Voters forum. Both were intelligent and prepared, with well-thought-out opening and closing statements. I also felt like their answers were not something they were simply slapping together on the spot.

It was clear that both candidates had been thinking about these questions and talking with friends, family, constituents, and others about the issues facing the district and the state. Both seemed to have a solid understanding of the questions being asked and the current issues at hand.

Their opening statements were also a good introduction to who they are and what they wanted to focus on during the forum. Both seemed prepared and ready to engage seriously with the questions.

TL;DR:

Scott DiMauro: Scott’s central message is that state government needs to take a more active role in solving problems. He repeatedly comes back to fully funding public schools, shifting more responsibility away from local property taxpayers, stronger state oversight and regulation, and protecting individual rights. He also frames his candidacy as a way to change the direction of Republican-controlled state government and bring more political balance to Columbus.

Sofia Tjotjos: Sofia’s central message is District 16 first. She emphasizes her nearly 40-year connection to the West Side, her experience as an attorney and small-business owner, local control, personal and parental responsibility, reducing unnecessary government spending and regulation, and having Columbus create a framework without automatically becoming the solution to every problem. Her argument is that she knows this community and should go to Columbus specifically to advocate for it.

My Take: My central takeaway is that there really isn’t as much daylight between these two candidates as you would expect. They agreed on a surprising number of issues. The biggest philosophical difference I saw was that Scott generally looked toward Columbus and state government for solutions, while Sofia leaned more toward local control, individual responsibility, and letting communities solve problems themselves.

But my bigger question is whether either one would actually break with their party when District 16 needs something different. I think Sofia will largely vote with the Republican caucus and Scott will largely vote with the Democratic caucus.

So after all of these questions, the choice may ultimately come down to something much simpler: Do you want a Republican or a Democrat representing District 16?

Opening Statements

Scott DiMauro: DiMauro is a retired social studies teacher and former president of the Ohio Education Association. He emphasized three main priorities: fully and fairly funding public education, creating a fairer tax system that reduces pressure on property taxpayers and local communities, and protecting individual freedoms. He also leaned heavily on his experience advocating for approximately 120,000 public school educators across Ohio as evidence that he knows how to represent people and advocate for their interests.

Sofia Tjotjos: Tjotjos emphasized her long connection to the West Side, her Greek-American family background, and her experience as an attorney and small-business owner. Her priorities included property tax reform while maintaining strong schools and public safety, reducing government waste and unnecessary regulation, supporting young families and small businesses, protecting the environment, and encouraging innovation. She framed her candidacy around her long-standing connection to the community and the idea of putting the interests of District 16 first.

Question 1 & 2: Two-Year Terms and the Role of a State Representative

Question: How would you balance long-term policy goals with the community’s immediate needs during a two-year term?

My Take

My opinion of their answers is that Sofia gave the answer I wanted to hear. She talked about the district and the constituents she would represent.

This is not a matter of saying, “Hey, let’s take the southern counties of Ohio, Cincinnati, and everybody else into consideration.” You are there as a representative of our district to go down to Columbus and advocate for us. Through that advocacy, you are going to fight for our goals. Representatives from other districts will advocate for their goals, and through that process, we will find what is best for the state.

I personally did not like Scott’s answer that a representative must balance the district’s immediate concerns with the concerns of the state as a whole and work across party lines. I don’t think that is the primary job of a state representative.

The job is to go down to Columbus with the concerns of your district and fight hard for your district. Other representatives should do the same for their districts. Through that fight, negotiation, and compromise among representatives, you ultimately determine what policies can achieve the goals of the individual districts while moving the state forward.

Question 3: Public School Funding and Vouchers

Question: How should Ohio fund public schools, and how should public school funding be weighed against state-funded private school vouchers?

My Take

I think it’s interesting that Scott did not say, “I want to repeal the school voucher system.” In fact, he acknowledged that there are people who, without a voucher, wouldn’t have that choice. To me, that suggests he sees some benefit to having a voucher system, even though he wants income limits, greater accountability, and public schools fully funded first.

Sofia supported the bipartisan Fair School Funding Plan, with adjustments to the student cost calculation and how local capacity is determined. Scott also supported implementing the Fair School Funding Plan, but criticized Republicans for moving away from it while expanding the voucher system.

That criticism of Republicans is going to become a theme throughout this forum. Personally, I felt that when Scott didn’t have a particularly strong answer to a question, he sometimes shifted the conversation toward criticizing Republicans or Trump rather than directly addressing the issue.

But on the substance of this particular question, there really wasn’t a major disagreement over the basic direction of school funding. Both essentially said they want Ohio to implement the bipartisan Fair School Funding Plan.

The Fair School Funding Plan is Ohio’s bipartisan school-funding framework designed to calculate the actual cost of educating a student and divide that cost between the state and local communities based on each community’s ability to pay, with the goal of reducing disparities caused by heavy reliance on local property taxes.

Question 4: Accountability for Private Schools Receiving Vouchers

Question: Should private schools receiving EdChoice vouchers face the same testing, reporting, and accountability requirements as public schools?

My Take

Sofia described vouchers as parental choice. I personally think we need to reevaluate all of this. The fact that we’re giving vouchers, or a portion of tax money, to private schools makes me uncomfortable with my tax dollars. I just don’t like it.

I think parents should have school choice, but I think that choice should go deeper than just public or private.

The Angry Democrat

School Boundaries Are Class Warfare

Now that everyone has rage-clicked into this and is already halfway to the comments section or my inbox, let me explain what I actually mean when I say I support the school voucher idea/ethos…

Read more

9 months ago · 5 likes · 15 comments · The Angry Democrat

Both Sofia and Scott supported financial accountability for the schools. Where they differed was academic testing and reporting. Sofia didn’t say that private schools should have the same testing and reporting requirements, while Scott thinks they should.

I don’t have kids, nor do I really care that much about this issue. It’s just not something I think about often. But the idea that every kid has to take the exact same test is kind of weird to me.

If kids can take different tests and perform better, isn’t the important thing the performance? Should there be some understanding of whether the kids are doing a good job at reading, writing, and arithmetic? Sure. Do they have to take the exact same tests? I don’t know.

Does it hurt or help them when it comes to college admissions? Don’t they eventually have to take an SAT, or a GMAT, or an LSAT, or all kinds of different tests depending on what schools they want to attend and what they want to do? If they can take those tests, perform well, and get into good colleges or vocational programs, then maybe that should be the test of whether the education they received actually worked.

Question 5: Legislation They Would Introduce or Co-Sponsor

Question: What legislation would you prioritize upon entering the Ohio House?

My Take

This is such an interesting argument because they’re all talking about school funding and taxes and circuit breakers. And here’s a little bit of a tangent.

I’m a single person, non-married, with no kids. I pay the same property taxes as a married couple. No married tax deductions, no child tax credits, none of that. Nobody in my household goes to the schools. I’m well into my 40s, and I don’t plan on having kids. So I’m still paying for schools even though none of this really has anything to do with me as a taxpayer.

And when Sofia says they have to address the sharp increase in assessed home values, that’s kind of a weird double-edged sword. Yes, taxes went up because home values were reassessed. But they were reassessed for more. That also gives all of these people more equity in their houses. They (hopefully) can now sell their houses for more money or take out a HELOC or home equity loan in order to do different things.

So if those sharp increases get reassessed downward, did you just take away some of my equity?

And why are we freezing property taxes for older people? Older people worked their whole lives. They should have savings, and yes, they’re on a fixed income. To be perfectly honest, I’m on a fixed income. Aren’t we all on fixed incomes? That is what a salary is. And why should property taxes be lower for people with less income?

I think both of these answers were basically an acknowledgment that something has to happen. Something should happen. There have been sharp increases in property taxes. But neither of them really said the elephant in the room: we’re taxing too damn much on property taxes.

Instead, we’re trying to give tax breaks to different people, groups, and situations. We’re trying to cherry-pick who gets relief without addressing the elephant in the room.

Property taxes have doubled and tripled in some cases, and that’s too damn much.

Question 6: Property Taxes and Local Government Funding

Question: How should Ohio reduce rising property taxes without undermining funding for schools and other local services?

My Take

This was almost the same answer as the previous one about what legislation they would introduce or co-sponsor. Their answers covered much of the same ground, so my answer is above.

Question 7: Vaccines and Public Health

Question: What should Ohio’s vaccination policy be, including school requirements and exemptions, and who should have authority during future public health emergencies?

My Take

Scott focused on declining vaccination rates and misinformation. He also supported existing good-faith religious exemptions, and I don’t know how you can really separate the two. It’s a personal choice of: Do I want to do something, or do I not want to do something?

That goes along with Sofia’s answer. She warned against broad mandates and said vaccination decisions should generally remain between individuals or parents and their doctors. I think that’s how we feel about a lot of different individual health choices. It’s between an individual, their family, and their doctor. I don’t know why we would want to start getting into the middle of that.

If there is a role for the State of Ohio, I would say it should be providing public awareness and the different options available to people. But I also think we should give people more options of different ways of becoming vaccinated. That could give people more choice than just, say, a Big Pharma needle (which is a big part of the anti vaxx debate), and I think that would clear up a lot of the issues.

Questions 8, 9, and 10 Combined: Data Centers, Local Control, Transparency, and Obsolescence

Question: How much control should local governments have over data centers, what should data centers be required to publicly disclose about their water and electricity consumption, and who should be responsible for the infrastructure if these facilities eventually become obsolete?

My Take

They both supported local control. Sofia pointed to Westlake’s temporary pause, acknowledging that data centers offer some economic benefits but also pose risks to different sectors. Scott also supported local control and wanted to prohibit nondisclosure agreements.

I think both of them pretty much agree on what should happen here, and I do too. We cannot dismiss the economic benefits of data centers, but we also have to have communities in control and be transparent.

That goes into Question 9 as well, where public reporting of water and electricity consumption would be part of the disclosures and transparency for the community.

And then there’s data center obsolescence. If you remember my conversation with Jim Renacci, that was one of the things he was saying: technology moves really quickly.

Scott really hit the nail on the head here. A computer that used to be the size of a room can now fit in your pocket. Actually, what’s in your pocket would have been considered a supercomputer 10 or 20 years ago.

Data centers could become obsolete very quickly depending on where technology goes, how it evolves, and how AI evolves. That needs to be part of the conversation when communities are making long-term decisions about these facilities and the infrastructure being built around them.

Question 11: Ohio Environmental Standards

Question: Should Ohio establish and enforce its own environmental standards as federal protections change?

My Take

There seems to be no real daylight between the two here. Both of them understand that we should maintain environmental protections.

It seems like Scott went a little bit further than Sofia, acknowledging fracking on public lands and power plant regulations, while Sofia acknowledged Lake Erie, the Rocky River watershed, phosphorus runoff, and algae blooms, while also trying to balance those protections with economic benefits.

I personally think that Northeast Ohio, our nature, our Metroparks, and our lake are some of the gems of this country, and they have to be protected and kept clean at almost all costs.

Yet there is also some common sense that we have to have when it comes to onerous bureaucratic regulations that companies have to jump through.

The question is: Can we create a process that allows businesses to operate while respecting the environment we live in and acknowledging the specialness of this region?

Can we streamline the process of opening businesses, manufacturing facilities, power plants, and so on and so forth, without creating onerous bureaucratic nightmares, bottlenecks, or financial constraints that scare businesses away?

I think that’s the balance we have to find.

Question 12: AI and Job Displacement

Question: What should Ohio do for workers whose jobs are changed or eliminated by AI and automation?

My Take

You know what? I think Sofia gave the best answer here, although they both basically said the same thing: there should be some sort of cooperation, acknowledgment, or understanding of what jobs might be displaced sooner rather than later, and we should offer training and pathways for people to migrate into different jobs.

The problem is that government and the legislature are notoriously bad at acknowledging and planning for these kinds of changes.

What are you going to do for the truckers who are going to lose their jobs to self-driving trucks? What industries can you actually identify as being displaced? Are you going to be right or wrong? What skills can you train people for when we don’t even know what jobs will emerge in the future?

I’m personally not too sure that the legislature, or either candidate, will be able to effectively do that.

Sofia, in my opinion, made an important point when she said that AI will disrupt existing occupations but also create new jobs and wealth. This is absolutely true.

So, in my opinion, there shouldn’t necessarily be a survey trying to predict what jobs are going to emerge because there’s really no way to plan for that. But maybe there should be a survey of who is currently offering different services for AI training, particularly programs that bridge AI with existing professions, and then steer people who want to train now toward those people and organizations already offering those services.

Long story short, it’s very hard to foresee the future of this. But offering or educating people about trade schools, community colleges, retraining programs, and finding people who are already in the market training workers on AI, or teaching people how to do their current jobs more efficiently with AI, I think is the better plan.

Question 13: State-Level AI Regulation

Question: Should Ohio regulate AI itself, or should AI regulation primarily be left to the federal government?

My Take

When it comes to state-level AI regulation, we’re really starting to see, at least in my opinion, a pattern emerge between Scott and Sofia. Scott seems to feel that the legislature should take on every question and have some sort of answer or role in everybody’s life. Sofia seems to emphasize local control and personal responsibility more.

This is another area where I don’t really know what state action Ohio should take rather than waiting for the federal government. Like, what should we do?

However, I do think schools need to understand what should and should not be allowed in their classrooms.

Should kids have their cell phones in school? No. They should put them in a pouch when they walk into school and not be able to open them all day. If parents complain that they can’t reach their kids during the day, I’m sorry, but that’s how it worked throughout history. Call the school, have somebody go get the kid, and bring them the phone if it’s an emergency. Other than that, it’s not an emergency, and they should be in school.

The same thing goes for AI. What are they using AI for?

My solution with AI is that school boards should call other school boards, form a coalition, and then call Anthropic, OpenAI, and other AI companies to create specific programs and tools that students could use as AI tutors. Those tools could be integrated directly into school systems, with teachers able to assign them to students through their laptops, iPads, and so on and so forth.

You could create an AI tutor that is an extension of the teacher and the curriculum rather than just giving students access to the same AI that everybody else uses, which can literally help them do their homework for them.

Beyond something like that, I don’t know what other regulations the State of Ohio should be putting in place just for the sake of saying that we’re regulating AI.

Question 14: Automatic License Plate Readers and Flock Cameras

Question: Should Ohio require warrants for police searches of automatic license plate reader data, and what other restrictions should apply?

My Take

When it comes to automatic license plate readers, we should probably stop calling them that because it’s obvious that they’re doing much more than just reading license plates.

Calling these systems “license plate readers” was a complete Trojan horse for getting a surveillance system that tracks movements, identifies people, and collects data while calling it a license plate reader, which is complete bullshit.

There seems to be really no daylight between Sofia and Scott on this question. They both support regulation. They both support the police, and police say that these systems help them do their jobs.

So, in my opinion, again, it comes down to how the state regulates this technology and views our different constitutional rights and people’s right to privacy. Can the legislature uphold those constitutional rights?

And which one of these candidates will fight hardest to put data surveillance and the selling of that data, most importantly, not just access to that data, but selling that data, into some sort of state law and force these companies to comply?

That, to me, is the real question.

Question 15: Local Police and Federal Immigration Enforcement

Question: What role should Ohio police and sheriffs play in federal immigration enforcement, and should the state require, allow, or limit cooperation?

My Take

It was obvious to me that this question made Scott uncomfortable. He said words that his base would resonate with, talking about giving people dignity and so on and so forth. Fine, but you could tell that he was uncomfortable with the question.

I personally think Sofia handled this question extremely well, and I think hers was the appropriate answer.

Should police officers have an obligation to enforce the law, including immigration laws and all other laws? Yes. It’s not their job to decide which laws apply and at what times.

For a community to tell a police force or sheriff that they should not comply with or enforce certain laws is, in my opinion, disrespectful to their job and puts police officers in a compromised position. The people who decide how laws apply are the judges.

And I think Democrats, especially here, sometimes put police officers in that compromised position without acknowledging the compromises those officers themselves may have to make with their own personal views in order to do the job of being a police officer.

Questions 16 and 17 Combined: Mail-In Ballots and Election Security

Question: Should Ohio restore the grace period for mail-in ballots received after Election Day, and how confident are the candidates in the security and accuracy of Ohio’s elections?

My Take

Scott and Sofia both expressed confidence in Ohio’s election system, which is great.

Both also had to answer whether they would restore the grace period for mail-in ballots. Again, Scott seemed uncomfortable. He knows what the base wants to hear and said there might be unexpected circumstances that prevent voters from meeting the deadline.

Sofia basically said, “Bro, you get 28 days to go vote.”

I personally agree with Sofia. I don’t know why you need to have a grace period. Get your ballot in the mail or go to the polls. There are so many ways to vote that when Election Day ends, in my opinion, that’s the deadline.

I personally think Scott is trying to compromise some of his personal views here in order to appease the base.

Closing Statements and Final Take

My Take

Their closing statements were, I think, the cherry on top.

Throughout this whole conversation, they both came prepared. They both spoke well. They both expressed their opinions very clearly. To be perfectly honest, there isn’t as much daylight between these two candidates as one would think.

Maybe it was the way they were answering the questions, but the biggest difference I saw between Scott and Sofia was this: Scott seemed to approach issues from the perspective that Columbus can and should take on all of these problems, while Sofia seemed to focus more on local control, the individual, and people solving their own problems.

But again, that difference probably came up only 20% of the time. On a lot of these questions, they really weren’t that far apart.

Scott focused on Republicans and Trump when he got uncomfortable, while Sofia did not focus on Democrats. Maybe Sofia read the room, knew who was showing up, didn’t want to deal with any backlash, and tempered her communication to fit the environment.

I think we all know that each one of them will ultimately be locked up with their party. I don’t think Sofia is going to break with the majority Republicans in any significant way to create or fight for legislation outside of what her caucus wants. And I don’t think Scott would be much different with the Democrats.

Scott is coming in to provide more balance to a majority-Republican legislature and to hold the seat for Democrats so Republicans don’t have a supermajority.

With that said, Scott is a carpetbagger. He moved up from Columbus to run for this seat. From my perspective, it seemed like this was something that had been planned and thought about at different levels of the Democratic Party, and I got wind of his arrival in the district even before he got here. Sofia pointed that out in her closing statement.

She pointed out that she has lived in the area for almost 40 years, raised her kids here, has grandchildren here, and has worked in the community. I think that should mean something.

The question isn’t whether these are both thoughtful, smart, and caring people who want to represent the district.

The question really comes down to (sadly): Do you want a Republican or a Democrat?

Are they actually going to advocate and fight for the individual needs of District 16, or are they ultimately going to be another vote for whatever their caucus wants? I think both will just be a rubber stamp Democrat or a rubber stamp Republican.

And again, Scott’s answer earlier about having to consider the whole state and other places really concerned me. I personally don’t think that’s your job. Your job is to go to Columbus and fight tooth and nail for District 16. Everybody else should go there and fight for their own districts. Then you hash it out and figure out what works for the state.

So the question for voters basically comes down to: Do you want a Democrat or a Republican?

Because based on their answers in this forum, there really wasn’t that much daylight between them. And I didn’t hear enough from either candidate to convince me that they would break with their party when necessary and actually say or do something original for District 16.

Ohio House District 16 Candidate Forum: Complete Transcript.

League of Women Voters of Greater Cleveland

Candidates: Scott DiMauro and Sofia Tjotjos
Moderator: Pam Smith
Introduction/Closing: Alice Allen

INTRODUCTION

Alice Allen: Welcome, everyone. Good evening, and thank you for coming to this evening’s candidates forum. Does my mic sound enough? Yes.

Thank you for coming to this evening’s candidates forum presented by the Bay Village, Cleveland, Fairview Park, Rocky River, and Westlake/North Olmsted chapters of the League of Women Voters of Greater Cleveland. We’re pleased to welcome all of you here with us tonight. I’d also like to welcome those who are watching online via the livestream and any folks who are watching the recording, which will be made available on the League of Women Voters of Greater Cleveland YouTube channel.

My name is Alice Allen, and I’m co-chair of the Rocky River chapter of the League. I’d like to thank the candidates in the race for the 16th Ohio House District who are with us tonight. Thank you to the City of Rocky River for the use of this space, and thank you to all the League of Women Voters chapter volunteers who are staffing this event. I will share some information with you later about the Election Protection program after the forum.

In keeping with our longstanding forum tradition, questions for the candidates will be submitted in writing. Everyone should have received a card when you entered this evening to write your questions for our candidates. When you have a question ready, raise your hand and a runner will come and pick up your card. You can also raise your hand if you need another question.

We have a couple League members at the question-sorting table who will be reviewing questions to avoid duplication, to provide a diversity of questions, and to ensure clarity and appropriateness.

As I stated earlier, we are recording the program for future viewing on YouTube. I want to let you all know that personal recording during the program is forbidden by League policy. You are invited to view and share the forum in its entirety on YouTube, but we also have a prohibition on sharing segments of the forum on social media.

Finally, we ask for your cooperation in avoiding expressions of support or opposition to any candidate during this evening.

Please remember the purpose of this evening is to hear from the candidates so that each resident might make their own best-informed decision regarding their vote, and any vocal interruption takes time away from that.

Now I’d like to introduce you to Pam Smith. We are fortunate to have Ms. Smith as our moderator this evening.

Ms. Smith comes to us from Lakewood, where she’s been a longtime member of the League. She served three four-year terms on Lakewood City Council and continues to volunteer in many Lakewood civic organizations.

Ms. Smith is retired from her marketing manager job with Steve Master Carpet. She always enjoys moderating candidate forums and recommends them as the best way to learn about candidates.

Please welcome Ms. Smith.

OPENING STATEMENTS

Moderator Pam Smith: Thank you very much, Alice. Can you hear me in the back?

This is going to be good. We’re going to have a great time tonight. I’m so glad to be here.

We have two candidates running for the 16th Ohio House District seat: Scott DiMauro and Sofia Tjotjos.

We will begin with two-minute opening statements by the candidates in alphabetical order. Mr. DiMauro will go first, Ms. Tjotjos next. For the final closing statements, we’ll reverse that order.

After their two-minute statements, then we have time for questions. And that’s where the meat of a candidates’ night is, because the questions can vary from very broad to rather specific. Both candidates will answer each question for one minute.

At the end of the time period, and I’ve got a specific time to be at, we will have the closing statements, and then Ms. Allen will come back up to close out the whole event.

So let’s get started.

Mr. DiMauro, can you please give us your two-minute opening statement?

Scott DiMauro — Opening Statement

Scott DiMauro: Thank you very much, Pam, and thank you, Alice. Thank you to the League of Women Voters for graciously hosting this event. I know this is an important opportunity to get into the issues that are facing voters of this district.

I am a retired high school social studies teacher. I went into teaching over 35 years ago because I wanted my students to have the critical-thinking, problem-solving, and decision-making skills that they needed to be good citizens in our environment. And little did I know then just how important that would be.

I’m running because I want to provide a voice for the residents of this community, and I’m advocating for three important priorities.

Number one, as a high school social studies teacher, also as a former president of the Ohio Education Association, where I advocated for 120,000 public school educators across the state, ensuring that every single student, no matter where they live, has a high-quality public education.

We need fair and full funding of our public schools. The current legislature has failed to get that done. And I’ll talk a little bit more later about what that looks like, but we have to make sure that we’re investing in our communities.

The only way we’re going to do that, not just fairly funding our schools but also our local communities, is to have fairness in our taxes.

Residents across the state are frustrated about rising property taxes, as well many people should be. But the reason that exists is because the state has fundamentally failed in its responsibility to do its part in funding.

And finally, I want to stand up for freedom for all Ohioans. Get the state out of people’s—

Moderator Pam Smith: Thank you.

Sofia Tjotjos — Opening Statement

Sofia Tjotjos: Good evening, and thank you all for being here tonight and to our hosts. It’s wonderful to see a large group like you who are interested in our district and the issues that it faces.

My name is Sofia Tjotjos. I’m a longtime West Side resident, and I’m running for state representative in District 16 because I love this community and I want to see it thrive and grow.

My husband and I grew up in Greek-American families that taught us the values of faith, family first, and that with hard work and integrity, we can accomplish anything in this country. We carried that same message to our children when we started our family right here in Rocky River almost 40 years ago.

We have four grown children now, two grandchildren, and in my father’s footsteps, I was an attorney. First in private practice for many years, and then, in order to be closer to the kids, I chose a solo practice in our home and specialized in business and nonprofit advising.

That worked well because my husband and I actually were starting a small business of our own in IT networking. That business lasted for 21 years and had over 50 employees.

One thing I’ve learned from all my time and experience in our community is how special and rare it truly is. It’s why I believe it deserves the best for the West, and we can accomplish it.

I believe we can reform property taxes and still fund strong public schools and safety services. I believe we can and should have a state government that respects our hard-earned money and uses only what it needs without waste or fraud. I believe we can inspire young families and small businesses with fewer regulations and more incentives. And I believe we can be good stewards of our environment and still invite innovation.

My focus is always our community first, people, my neighbors, over party. And as your state representative, I will listen to you, research your concerns, and work to find solutions that I believe represent District 16 and the best for the West.

Thank you.

DISTRICT 16 AND CONNECTION TO THE COMMUNITY

Moderator Pam Smith: I suspect most people in this room are from the close area here, but actually District 16 has quite an amount of geography in it. I wonder if each of you would just take a minute to talk about the geography and your place within it. Starting with Scott.

Scott DiMauro: Yeah, sure. Thank you for the question.

So, the district includes Bay Village, Westlake, Rocky River, Fairview Park, and most of West Park in Cleveland. My wife, Lauren, and I live in Westlake.

Lauren is a middle school English language arts teacher in Bay Village. We have close ties to the community, and as I’ve been on this campaign journey over the last 11 months, I’ve had a chance to visit neighborhoods all across the district.

We have a very diverse district. A diverse district in terms of economics. We have a diverse district when it comes to religious affiliation, when it comes to politics, when it comes to ethnicity, when it comes to race. And I think that’s one of the things that makes this district so strong.

I am very excited to be a resident of the 16th District, and I hope to have the opportunity to represent this fantastic community.

Moderator Pam Smith: Thank you. Ms. Tjotjos.

Sofia Tjotjos: Well, as I began with, I’m a longtime resident in this community. Actually, I was born and raised in Cuyahoga County, but started out in my grade-school years on the East Side. My parents moved us here when I was in high school.

And I will tell you, for me, they go from the East to the West and fell in love. And for those of you who are from the West Side, you know the same. We all go from East to West without crossing through customs, right?

So I have spent my entire life, the rest of my life, here, and definitely in my adult life with the entire community, both as a church volunteer, a community volunteer, a school volunteer with my children, and also in my careers.

So I have a very, very deep and warm connection to this district and all the people who live in it.

ROLE OF A STATE REPRESENTATIVE

Moderator Pam Smith: Starting with Ms. Tjotjos, here’s a question on the role of the state representative.

With a two-year term, how will you balance long-term policy goals with our community’s immediate needs? One minute.

Sofia Tjotjos: Yes. Actually, the State of Ohio defines the role of a state representative very clearly. It says: one, listen to your constituents; two, speak for them; and three, turn their needs and concerns into legislative action.

I think that’s one of the most important aspects of being a state rep, is to represent this community. There are 99 state reps. Their role is each to represent the community that they come from.

It’s one of the reasons I feel I’m uniquely qualified for this position because of the years I’ve been here, the amount of experience I have in different facets as an attorney, as a small-business owner, as a mother, a grandmother, and a wife.

Moderator Pam Smith: Thank you. Mr. DiMauro.

Scott DiMauro: So your question is about planning when you have just a two-year term. And again, the framers of our state Constitution, just like the framers of the U.S. Constitution, believed two-year terms are important for representatives because it helps ensure accountability.

Going back to the voters every two years means that you have to listen to the voters, as Sofia said. But it is vitally important not just to think about the immediate needs of the district, but remembering that as one of 99 members of the House, your most important responsibility is to vote in ways that could be good for the State of Ohio, for all of its people.

And so I think it’s important to bring the voice of the community, to understand that perspective, but to work across the aisle to make sure that we’re making decisions that are looking ahead, looking to the future, to ensure that we are strengthening our communities and we’re building a strong Ohio.

SCHOOL FUNDING AND VOUCHERS

Moderator Pam Smith: This is a question about the State of Ohio and what the 99 representatives would be working on.

Starting with Mr. DiMauro, how should Ohio fund its schools? How do you weigh funding for public schools against state-funded vouchers for private schools?

Scott DiMauro: It’s a great question, and I’m sorry that we only have a minute to talk about that. I see Jim Best in the back of the room. Jim knows a lot about this issue. He and I have talked a lot about this issue.

We have what’s called a Fair School Funding Plan, a bipartisan plan that addressed our unconstitutional funding system, which has an overreliance on local property taxes, by ensuring that we are identifying the cost of providing quality education to every student and making sure that the resources are there and then that’s fairly distributed across the state.

Sadly, the current Republican supermajority has dismantled the Fair School Funding Plan. And part of that has been by prioritizing tax cuts for the wealthy, the billions of dollars in vouchers to subsidize private-school education.

And I think we really need to fix that. We need to go back to the bipartisan school funding plan to ensure that every student, no matter the ZIP code that they come from, has a high-quality public education.

Moderator Pam Smith: Thank you. Ms. Tjotjos, how should Ohio fund its schools?

Sofia Tjotjos: Yes, I agree with Scott. This is a question that requires more than a minute. But let me start with what I do agree with.

One is that the Fair School Funding Plan should be seen through its final phase. It began in 2022. Its final phase would occur in 2027.

I would like to see our legislature follow through with that formula with a couple of adjustments. One would be that we make sure the student cost calculation has a realistic cap so that it’s not just based on school spending.

And the other thing would be that local capacity for districts like 16 reflect what’s called phantom revenue as well.

As far as vouchers, I hope I get another opportunity to talk about that because it’s a separate issue.

Voucher Accountability

Moderator Pam Smith: As a matter of fact, I have a follow-up.

What accountability, if any, should private schools that accept EdChoice vouchers have to taxpayers? Should private schools give the same tests and publicly report achievement and graduation rates? Ms. Tjotjos.

Sofia Tjotjos: Okay, let’s first talk about the vouchers, which are really parent choice. It’s parents’ choice where they would like to educate their child, and I trust a parent to make that decision more than the state government.

There are two misnomers about the voucher program. One is that it’s taking money away from the public schools, and two, that it’s only benefiting the wealthy families who are sending their children to private schools.

First, the funding of both the public schools and the vouchers are separate. They are calculated separately. They are listed separately, and they do not cross over to each other. So they don’t affect one another.

Secondly, actually, it’s a sliding scale. Wealthier families get the least amount of the benefit, and the poor families get the most.

Finally, with regard to accountability, I agree. If there is a private school taking public money, I think they should be accountable to the state for the fiscal reporting, in other words, what they’re doing with that money, not the report cards and academic performance.

Scott DiMauro: I think this is an area where we disagree pretty starkly.

I will begin by saying the accountability should be the same. If private schools that are accepting billions of dollars of your taxpayer money are going to continue to do that, then they should have their students take the same tests. There should be both fiscal and academic oversight to make sure that taxpayers are getting what they deserve with that.

As far as who’s benefiting, I certainly understand there are a lot of people who, without the voucher, wouldn’t have that choice. But vouchers have been dramatically expanded in the last two budget cycles to the point where millionaires can now qualify for state money to send their kids to private schools when they were already paying out of pocket to do it.

That is just a flat giveaway from people at the bottom to people at the top. That needs to change.

I think we need to put some accountability standards. We need to put some income limits on that. And we need to make sure that we are first fully funding our public schools.

LEGISLATIVE PRIORITIES AND PROPERTY TAXES

Moderator Pam Smith: We’re very close on time here because of the Zoom and how it fits together. So please don’t clap within the program because that uses up time.

You will have time to talk to each candidate privately after the meeting.

I would like to ask you now, candidates: Do you have a piece of legislation that you would like to introduce or co-sponsor? Starting with Mr. DiMauro.

Scott DiMauro: Well, the first one is the state budget that prioritizes fully and fairly funding our schools, using the Fair School Funding Plan as the basis for that.

Along with that, I would proudly co-sponsor legislation that has been introduced by Republican Senator Bill Blessing in Cincinnati to provide a circuit breaker in order to provide targeted property-tax relief.

No one should ever be taxed out of their home. We do need to make sure that we have tax fairness. But that doesn’t mean eliminating property taxes. That would be absolutely devastating for the State of Ohio.

We could expand our Homestead Exemption, provide tax relief tied to income for people that need it. And if we fully and fairly fund our public schools, which right now the state is ranked 45th in the country in terms of state support for public education, that will go a long way to providing needed property-tax relief for homeowners.

Sofia Tjotjos: For me, the first bill would definitely be property taxes as well. Scott has mentioned a few options, but a lot of it is piecemeal.

I actually drafted a bill that I would love to put forward if I went into the state that really addresses all homeowners and the incredible increase that occurred across the board in this last appraisal. Thirty-two percent on average, but in our district as much as a 60% value increase.

I think that there has to be some address to those people whose values jumped up so high.

So I agree with the circuit breaker. That’s good for low income. I also definitely agree with a freeze for seniors who are over 70 so that they are not being priced out of their home.

Balancing Property-Tax Relief and Local Funding

Moderator Pam Smith: Continuing to discuss the property tax, starting with you, Ms. Tjotjos. What’s your proposal for addressing the property taxes that are going up, but we still need to have the funding come to our local communities?

Sofia Tjotjos: Yes. So, property taxes, they are generated by the local community. The state taxes come from our income taxes, our sales taxes, our fuel and sin taxes. They’re two different revenue sources.

And you’re right, property taxes are very important primarily to school funding, safety services, local parks, and libraries.

So even when we address that taxpayers are being very overburdened by the amount of property tax, we do also have to look at how to balance that with the needs.

I think there are numerous ways to do that. One is simply make sure that our spending at the state level is trimmed, is responsible, there’s no waste, there’s no fraud. We are experiencing a surplus right now at the state level already.

So I think we can accomplish both. I think what has happened is that a wild assessment in values has created an unfair burden on the taxpayer, but it would not necessarily cost that fallout on the more important services like school funding and safety services.

Moderator Pam Smith: Mr. DiMauro.

Scott DiMauro: Let’s not forget how we got into this situation right now.

Back in 2011, when Republicans took control, John Kasich cut 50% of the Local Government Fund, which devastated funding for the police and local communities from across the state.

At the same time, we’ve seen this steadily deteriorating state share of education. In this current year, the state is only providing 32% of school funding, which is the lowest in history.

And so until we rebalance that, until we stop prioritizing tax breaks for big corporations, until we stop prioritizing income-tax cuts for the people at the very top, we have the second-lowest income-tax rate in the nation, then we’re not going to be able to adequately address the property-tax issue.

But I do think that we can do it.

And by the way, that state surplus that Sofia just mentioned, given the changes that we’re seeing at the federal level with funding, I’m a little worried about that.

VACCINATIONS AND PUBLIC HEALTH

Moderator Pam Smith: We’re going to switch gears now and ask a question about health, specifically measles.

Starting with Mr. DiMauro, there’s a question which came from the audience. Please continue to hand your questions over to one of the ushers.

Measles cases have returned in the U.S., and another pandemic like COVID-19 is possible. What should Ohio’s approach be to vaccination, including school vaccine requirements and exceptions in future public-health emergencies? How should decisions be divided between the governor and health officials and the legislature?

Wow, big question. Mr. DiMauro.

Scott DiMauro: Well, let’s start by telling the truth.

The current administration is lying to the people, and that’s one of the reasons why we see, because of the craziness with the current Secretary of Health and Human Services and people that are spreading a lot of misinformation, vaccine rates are going down.

I think we have to do our job in educating the public.

There have always been good-faith exceptions for people that, for religious reasons, feel like they shouldn’t vaccinate their children. But so much of that declining vaccination rate is being driven by that misinformation.

And so one of the things that I think a lot of people don’t realize, Ohio is the only state in the country without comprehensive health education standards.

Let’s start by making sure that we are educating people so that they can make good decisions and protect their children.

Moderator Pam Smith: Thank you. Ms. Tjotjos, what’s your feeling about vaccination requirements for schools?

Sofia Tjotjos: Vaccination requirements for schools, but also I think you were talking about regulations that we saw in the pandemic era, and I think none of us ever want to see something like that occur again.

So I think we do have to be very cautious about making global mandates.

I think that the vaccination of individuals, children and adults, should be mostly within their own discretion unless it’s been determined by the state that there’s a statewide issue at hand.

I think medical questions should be private and determined by each individual and their doctor.

DATA CENTERS

Local Control and a Potential Pause

Moderator Pam Smith: I have three questions. They follow in order and will bounce back and forth between the candidates. These three questions are about a hot topic in the news, namely data centers.

The first question, starting with Ms. Tjotjos: How much say should local communities have in approving data-center projects? Do you think Ohio should pause new data centers while it studies the effects on water supplies and the electric grid?

Sofia Tjotjos: I think local cities should have a say, definitely, in whether data centers come to their community.

In fact, Westlake recently enacted something giving themselves a six-month pause so that they could determine how they would want to approach data centers in their service area. And I think that’s wise.

I also think that data centers present a very unusual situation. Both have tremendous amounts of benefit and also some risks. Risks to Ohioans in the nature of energy, water usage, air pollution, even farming.

So I would advocate definitely slowing down, making sure that we have the right precautions in place as a state, and assisting cities in making those decisions as well.

Moderator Pam Smith: Thank you. Mr. DiMauro, what do you say about local communities having a say in the approval?

Scott DiMauro: Yeah, I think it’s critically important that local communities have a say in this. In fact, that’s who’s making the decisions.

With the proliferation of data centers that we’ve seen over the last few years across the state, those decisions have all been made by township trustees, by city councils, by county commissions.

The number one thing that I would do, and actually maybe another bill that I would introduce right away, is we need to ban nondisclosure requirements or nondisclosure agreements. We need to require full transparency.

Because when a local community is making a decision on whether or not to allow a data center to be built in its jurisdiction, their driving decision should be: Is this going to create a community benefit?

The only way to answer that question is if all the cards are on the table. We need to end these secret agreements.

Water, Electricity, Noise and Transparency

Moderator Pam Smith: The follow-up question, number two, is: What requirements should Ohio place on the data centers for water use, electric use, noise, construction? Should companies be required to publicly report their water and energy use?

Scott DiMauro: Yes, to the last part. Companies absolutely should be required to report their energy use and their water use.

And in addition to transparency, I think it’s very important that we have clear regulations. And this is where deregulation isn’t always a good thing. Clear regulations in place to make sure that we are protecting water, that we’re not jacking up people’s electricity costs because of this increased demand on the grid.

So I think the state has a very important role to play there.

I think issues of noise, appropriate placement, people shouldn’t be dealing with the noise of a data center in their neighborhood. So those kinds of zoning requirements I think are also important too.

A lot of those decisions are local decisions, but the state can provide a regulatory framework to make sure that we’re protecting our citizens.

Moderator Pam Smith: Thank you. Ms. Tjotjos, what do you think about what Ohio law should collect regarding water use, electricity use, and asking companies to publicly report this?

Sofia Tjotjos: Well, I actually agree with Scott on a lot of these issues. I think transparency is critical.

And I would say that it’s even critical with regard to, for example, the tax abatements that we’re doing in order to induce the data centers to come into Ohio. It’s not only how much ended up going out the door on that, but what benefits we received in exchange.

So that’s a window that I think we need to close.

I also think that, with regard to energy, any place these data centers are located, there should be partnership between the city and that data center and the energy company in order to make sure they are helping and providing funds for the buildout of infrastructure that they need to meet their needs, and to make sure that the local ratepayers and Ohioans in general are not bearing the cost of the additional energy and/or water that’s needed.

And definitely transparency on water usage. And also in areas where they’re near urban areas, for those generators that are making noise all night long and for air pollution, they should be complying with the same kind of rules as any other industry.

Obsolescence and Infrastructure Costs

Moderator Pam Smith: The third question about data centers is, looking down the road, what if the data center is for some reason outdated compared to a new data center somewhere? Who should pay for infrastructure upgrades to support data centers? Ms. Tjotjos.

Sofia Tjotjos: Again, this to me goes back to the data centers themselves and who’s building them. This is a business for them. They should bear the cost of it, not us.

On the other side of data centers, there’s tremendous benefit to Ohio in revenue. In some cases, they have benefited the community tremendously by being one of the main taxpayers that help support the schools, for example.

But all of this has to be done somewhat on a case-by-case basis.

Yes, the state can be very involved in setting general frameworks, but as each data center comes into each community, those cities should be very involved in how that data center is built out, who’s paying for that buildout, what effect it has on that community, and they should be in a partnership that benefits both of them.

Moderator Pam Smith: Thank you. Mr. DiMauro.

Scott DiMauro: Yeah, that’s an excellent question.

And I think about the fact that 40 years ago, we think about mainframe computers, and they would take up this entire room or this entire building, and the computing power in them then can now be fit on this.

So it really does raise the question: How long will it take before data centers become obsolete?

And so therefore, part of the regulatory framework should be: What is the plan? What are the contingency plans for if and when this facility is not going to be needed anymore or times change?

Again, that should all be very clearly disclosed. And as local communities are making decisions on these projects, having an answer to that question has to be an important factor in those decisions.

ENVIRONMENTAL STANDARDS

Moderator Pam Smith: The next question is about environmental concerns.

We’ve seen some lessening from the federal level around environmental standards. I’d like to ask the candidates, starting with Mr. DiMauro: Do you think Ohio should play a role in setting its own environmental standards?

Scott DiMauro: Well, Ohio does have its own set of environmental laws. We have a state Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Natural Resources, Department of Agriculture, that all have environmental protection responsibilities embedded in them.

And it’s not just the federal government that has been watering down environmental protection.

I think the most blatant example of that, just in the news this past week, was the Trump administration announcing that they are trying to get rid of environmental standards on power-plant emissions.

But we see it here in the State of Ohio, as this current legislature has just opened the door to fracking on public lands, on exploitation of state forests and state parks.

So, yeah, I think it’s very important that at the state level we take protecting our environment seriously, and that does require regulation.

Moderator Pam Smith: Thank you. Ms. Tjotjos, what about environmental standards?

Sofia Tjotjos: Yes, I think the state plays a very important role in our environmental protection.

And then on some of the issues, for example, that Scott raised, it’s always a balance between the benefits to the state and the balancing of the environmental needs.

One of my main platforms, especially for District 16, is the protection of Lake Erie. Our district is bordered by the lake, and I think it’s crucial not only to the economy but also our enjoyment of this district and our neighborhoods.

So I am very much in favor, for example, of H2Ohio, which actually in this last budgeting cycle saw a 40% reduction in its budgeted amounts.

I would very strongly support seeing that grow and be fully budgeted because it protects Lake Erie from algae blooms. And actually, it’s a wonderful program which has partnered with the farmers in our area to make sure that they minimize phosphorus runoff. It’s been tremendously successful.

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE AND JOBS

Moderator Pam Smith: Now we’re going to take another dive into another hot topic: artificial intelligence.

Starting with Ms. Tjotjos, what if a person loses their job to artificial intelligence? What role should the state play in helping workers whose jobs have been changed or eliminated by automation and AI?

Sofia Tjotjos: Well, AI is coming whether we like it or not, and it will have an impact on the workforce.

It’s one of the other, I think, technological revolutions in our time. What it does is usually also open up doors to all new possibilities for jobs and wealth.

So what I think we need to do, really, is examine where are the most impacted areas of AI to the standard, customary jobs, and look for programs that will enable people out of those positions to get certification or roles that would be very industry—

Moderator Pam Smith: Thank you. Mr. DiMauro, what about you? How can the state help workers whose jobs have changed?

Scott DiMauro: Yeah, it’s a very difficult question to answer because this is an area that is changing so rapidly.

And again, let’s look at the big picture. There are five-alarm warning bells going off everywhere about dangers of AI, losing control of AI in different ways.

And yet the person in the White House is saying, “Don’t look behind the curtain. There’s nothing to see here.”

That is so irresponsible. But the party that is enabling that has put us in this situation.

I think it’s important to really be serious about what are the things that we can control.

I think we need to make sure that we can use AI in an effective way in education, that we can take steps to protect children from misuse of AI. We can protect the integrity of our elections.

And to the extent that we can, let’s try to invest in education and job training at all levels to give workers the range of skills and the adaptability to adjust as the economy changes.

AI Regulation and Transparency

Moderator Pam Smith: Continuing on with this, some states, though not Ohio as of yet, have passed their own AI transparency laws. Others are concerned that AI regulation should be left to the federal government.

What’s your opinion on regulation, starting with Mr. DiMauro?

Scott DiMauro: Well, I don’t trust this federal government at all. And it’s very clear that this federal government doesn’t want to do it and is not going to do it, at least for the next two years.

And so we can either sit back and just claim that we’re powerless to address it, or we can roll up our sleeves, do the research that we need to do, engage in our community, and step up and lead in this area.

I think it’s important to learn from effective policies in other states.

I will be the first to admit that I still have a lot to learn about this, and this is probably one issue that I’ve spent more time on in the last year than any other issue.

But it’s one of those things, circle of knowledge, the more you know, the more you realize how much you don’t know.

But I don’t think that sitting back and saying that, sorry, we don’t have a role to play here, is an option.

Moderator Pam Smith: Ms. Tjotjos, what about regulation?

Sofia Tjotjos: Yes. Well, it’s, as Scott mentioned, such a rapidly evolving industry that I think meaningful regulation at this point at a federal level is going to take some analysis.

But I do think that at the state level there’s a role that we can play as well, and certainly in our schools.

I mean, we are seeing AI in the classrooms. We are seeing children use AI to complete their homework assignments.

Just like when cell phones first came into the classroom, or computers, there was a need to make sure that the children were not being negatively impacted by that new tool.

This tool can be very, very positive, and I think the schools have to step up and begin to train children properly on how it can be used to their benefit.

But policies about academic integrity and privacy also have to be put in place.

So I think we can make a difference at the local level and certainly at a state level while the global level is still trying to find its way.

AUTOMATIC LICENSE PLATE READERS

Moderator Pam Smith: Starting with Ms. Tjotjos, many Ohio communities use automatic license plate reader cameras.

What do you think? Should state law require police to get a warrant before searching the data that these cameras collect?

Sofia Tjotjos: Well, you’re discussing Flock cameras, and it’s definitely a hot issue right now for privacy reasons.

For the same fear people have about AI in general, that this data and this information is going to be much more invasive than ever anticipated.

So we have seen in Ohio numerous cities that thought it was going to be a good idea actually completely back away from Flock cameras.

And I do think they need some serious regulation.

For example, the data perhaps would have a timeline where it expires, so that after 30 days there would be no data available anymore.

What will there be for sharing data with other governmental agencies? And definitely there should be warrants in certain circumstances that I think would have to be examined by the state side.

Moderator Pam Smith: Thank you. Mr. DiMauro, what about these Flock cameras?

Scott DiMauro: It’s a great question.

And I would encourage people to check out, there’s a very interesting story in Cleveland.com about competing bills that are pending in the legislature on this issue, and I’m studying all of that.

But I very much agree with a lot of things that Sofia just said.

I think it is important to acknowledge, though, that if you talk to people in law enforcement, and I’m proud to have received the support of the FOP and the Cleveland Police Patrolmen’s Association, and police at the state level, it is clear that automated license plate readers are effective in helping to solve crimes.

And when you talk to people in the community, they want to feel safe.

But I do believe that the surveillance state is going too far. I do think that we need to put limitations on it.

And I am still trying to figure out exactly how to best balance the need for public safety and protecting people’s privacy and individual rights.

IMMIGRATION ENFORCEMENT

Moderator Pam Smith: We really are handling a variety of topics tonight. Thank you all for being here.

The next one is about immigration.

What role should Ohio’s local police and sheriffs play in federal immigration enforcement? Should the state require, allow, or limit that cooperation? Starting with Mr. DiMauro.

Scott DiMauro: Well, I mean, I think the starting point on all of this is to recognize that the federal immigration enforcement regime that we’ve seen in place for the last year and a half is largely inhumane.

And we have to begin at a place and treat every human being with the dignity and respect as children of God.

A lot of things that the Pope has said on this, and the Catholic bishops have said on this, being Catholic myself, I think are very instructive here.

I also believe that the state has an important role to play in providing some oversight and accountability.

We know from Minneapolis that when certain federal agents, particularly from ICE, go too far, there needs to be some accountability. Right now that is lacking.

That said, it is our job to make sure that everybody is safe. And we can’t live in a society with open borders. We do need safe and secure borders. We do need immigration enforcement, but it needs to be made—

Moderator Pam Smith: Thank you. Ms. Tjotjos, what role should Ohio’s local police and sheriffs play in federal immigration enforcement?

Sofia Tjotjos: Well, I am the granddaughter of Greek immigrants. My husband is the son of immigrants.

And I will tell you that I am a very, very proud daughter of immigrants, but of immigrants that came into this country wanting to be part of it and wanting to be here as legal citizens.

What I feel is that our police, they want to, yes, protect us and keep us safe, but their obligation is also to enforce the law.

And so if there are any people here who are in violation of those laws, it’s our obligation in this local area and in the state to enforce those laws.

They are not in a position to make a decision as to whether this, in this particular case, is the right to enforce it or to step away.

I do agree with Scott that these are very delicate issues. It’s going to involve families and people who very much want to be here.

But in the end, this is about enforcing our immigration laws, and I think that actually for the police, they should do that in a reasonable and straightforward manner.

MAIL-IN BALLOT GRACE PERIOD

Moderator Pam Smith: The last two questions that I’m going to ask tonight are about our elections.

Starting with Ms. Tjotjos, the state legislature recently eliminated the grace period for the return of mail-in ballots.

Would you support legislation to change this to allow for the grace period or not?

Sofia Tjotjos: No.

I feel that we have 28 days to do in-person voting, to do mail-in voting, maybe even time before that to request a ballot. This is plenty of time.

What I think is more important is that we make sure our voters know the rules, that they have those 28 days, that they can either vote in person, they can mail it in, but it must be received by that date.

They can drop it in the mailboxes that are available. And even if they show up to vote and don’t have their ID with them, for example, they can provisionally vote and provide that ID at a later time.

I think the laws right now are adequate. They just need to be clear and make sure that they’re properly communicated to all of our citizens.

Moderator Pam Smith: Thank you. Mr. DiMauro.

Scott DiMauro: I would support legislation to restore the grace period.

But to the credit of voters in the state, we’ve been through this new rule through one election cycle, and most people did get their ballots in on time. So I don’t know that it would have a significant impact.

But my problem with the elimination of the grace period was this was an unnecessary way of making it harder for people to vote.

We should make sure that everyone has an opportunity to vote. And if someone is in a situation where, with the week before the election, they suddenly realize they’ve got a family emergency and they’re going to be out of town and they’re not going to be able to vote on Election Day, I think that’s why you have that grace period.

And by the way, we do still have the extended time period for people who are military and overseas. So why are you not treating everybody the same?

OHIO ELECTION SECURITY

Moderator Pam Smith: And the last question that I will ask is about elections themselves.

Starting with Mr. DiMauro, how confident are you in the security and accuracy of Ohio elections? Would you have any change you would like to make?

Scott DiMauro: I am very confident in the security of Ohio’s elections, despite the very organized effort to try to undermine confidence in elections.

And in fact, I think one of the great strengths of our election system here in the State of Ohio is having multiple opportunities to vote, including voting by mail.

Yet there is a systematic, organized effort to try to undermine confidence in that.

But no, we clearly, and our current Secretary of State has said over and over and over again, that Ohio’s system of voting is safe and secure and continues to be.

Moderator Pam Smith: Ms. Tjotjos.

Sofia Tjotjos: Yes, I would agree that Ohio’s voting system is one of the most secure.

There are multiple layers of protecting your vote.

First is that your vote is a paper vote. It is not just a digital vote. So that if there’s any recount or audit, there is actually a piece of paper to back every single vote that’s been placed.

There’s also bipartisan poll workers. So there is always a Democrat and a Republican on the premises voting.

There is also a Republican and Democrat that must accompany the ballots as they leave the polling area to go be counted. And there’s a Republican and a Democrat that must be present at early voting.

There are multiple checks and balances because I think that our Secretary of State, our state in general, just truly believes that Ohioans are important and have an important voice in our government nationally and locally.

CLOSING STATEMENTS

Moderator Pam Smith: Thank you very much.

It’s now time for the closing statements by each candidate. Two minutes each, starting with Ms. Tjotjos.

Sofia Tjotjos — Closing Statement

Sofia Tjotjos: Thank you again to Pam, to the League, and to all of you for being here tonight.

You know, what I learned is that Scott and I agree on some things, schools, property tax, but we are very different candidates with different experiences and different connections to this district.

Scott moved into this district and registered to vote here last year. He filed to run for this seat just seven months later.

I’ve lived in this district for almost 40 years and voted in 35 elections here. I raised my family here. My children went to Rocky River public schools. I was PTA Council president, Sunday school teacher at the Greek Orthodox church.

Scott similarly spent 30 years in Columbus. He raised his family there, taught school there, then led the statewide teachers union there for 12 years.

His life and career have been in Columbus in one lane, public education and advocating for it. It’s a fight I respect. My mother was a public school teacher, and I love the public schools. I want to protect them.

And I’m sure Scott will come to love this community, but District 16 doesn’t need a Columbus-grown advocate for one cause. It needs somebody who will protect everything that matters here.

We also differ on how. On the League’s voter guide, for example, Scott said he supports bringing back higher income-tax brackets and repealing the small-business owners deduction. I’d find savings first.

My life on the West Side has been many things at once: trial lawyer, a small-business owner, a mother and a grandmother, church and school volunteer.

I know this community inside and out, and I love it. My loyalty is not to any one organization. It’s to you.

I’ve done a lot of homework on what I’d like to do for District 16. It’s on my website so you can see exactly who I am and what I plan to do.

I’ll bring my whole heart, my experience, and my fight to Columbus to make sure District 16 always gets the best for the West.

Thank you.

Scott DiMauro — Closing Statement

Scott DiMauro: Thank you.

And again, thank you very much for hosting this forum, for the opportunity to be here this evening.

Yes, it is true that I have not lived in this district for as long as you have. And I have no question about your commitment to this community, but I am no less committed to the success of every single person in this community.

Don’t ever doubt that for a second.

I was born in Cleveland. I was raised in Northeast Ohio. Yes, I spent most of my teaching career in Columbus, and then I advocated at the state level in every single county across the state to make sure that every single student, regardless of their ZIP code, had a high-quality public education.

Education is the foundation of our future.

Throughout this process, and I have been on the campaign trail for almost a year, I have learned so much, and I have earned the support of law enforcement, of the environmental activist community. I have earned the support of CPAs and the medical community, and I have solid support from organized labor.

But most importantly, as I’ve been going to the doors and I’ve been having conversations with voters, I’ve been hearing from people who are deeply dissatisfied about the direction of this state.

I think with Sofia, you will certainly have somebody who is committed to this community, but she’s associated with a party that has turned us in the complete wrong direction.

She’s going to be part of the Republican supermajority, or the Republican majority. Hopefully, it’s not going to be a supermajority, that has shortchanged our schools, that has shortchanged our communities.

And I’m going to change them.

I’ve talked to so many Republicans, independents, and Democrats who are ready for change. They’re sick and tired of what they’re seeing in D.C. They’re sick and tired of the corruption in Columbus.

They need a strong leader fighting for them.

I hope you will fight with me for the change that Ohio needs.

Thank you.

FORUM CLOSING

Moderator Pam Smith: This program has been recorded, and in fact it’s on Zoom as we have been speaking, and it will be posted on the YouTube website of the League of Women Voters of Greater Cleveland.

Our forum is funded by the nonprofit education fund of the League of Women Voters. And if you find it valuable to have forums like this, please consider making a donation to the League. There’s a box in the back and a QR code on the back table.

I’m now going to turn the meeting over to Alice Allen for some important information. Thank you.

Alice Allen: I want to share with you that the League of Women Voters is honored to be part of the nonpartisan Election Protection Coalition, which works year-round to ensure that all voters have an equal opportunity to vote and have that vote counted.

Election Protection provides Ohioans from Lake Erie to the Ohio River with nonpartisan information and assistance at all stages of voting, from registration and voting early, absentee, and on Election Day, to overcoming obstacles to ballots.

Voters can text or call 866-OUR-VOTE to get assistance in real time. There are also hotlines available in Spanish, Arabic, and AAPI languages.

We also need poll monitors to staff Cuyahoga County Early Vote Center and area polling locations on Election Day to help voters by answering questions and reporting problems so that LWV and our partners can work with election officials to get them resolved.

Every poll monitor will be trained and provided with all materials they need.

Please join the League of Women Voters of Greater Cleveland and the Election Protection Coalition in helping every eligible Ohioan have their voices heard.

To volunteer or get more information about Election Protection, please visit the table near the door.

Thank you again for coming.

I invite you to join us tomorrow at 7:00 p.m. here, same room. We will be holding a forum for the candidates of the 23rd District of the Ohio Senate. We invite you to join us.

Don’t forget to make a voting plan for November 3rd.

Thank you.

The Cuyahoga County Democratic Party issued its endorsements for Issues 3 and 10 through 14. This is my take on Issue 14

Democratic Party position: Yes
Matt’s position: Yes with caveat

Current System

The County Executive appoints all nine members of the Charter Review Commission.

County Council confirms all nine appointments.

Proposed System

Issue 14 changes the appointment process:

• Four members appointed solely by the Executive

• Four members appointed solely by Council

• One member appointed by the Executive and confirmed by Council

The Charter Review Commission reviews the county’s governing Charter every 10 years and recommends possible amendments.

The commission cannot change the Charter itself. Council decides which proposed amendments reach the ballot, and voters make the final decision.

Benefits

Neither the Executive’s four appointees nor Council’s four appointees could control a nine-member commission alone.

Each side would need at least one additional vote to reach a five-member majority.

The proposal distributes appointment authority instead of allowing every nomination to originate with the Executive.

Potential Weaknesses

Eight of the nine members would no longer receive cross-branch review.

Under the current system, Council can reject any person nominated by the Executive.

Under Issue 14 however:

• Council cannot reject the Executive’s four direct appointments.

• The Executive cannot reject Council’s four direct appointments.

The ninth member is not independently chosen. The Executive nominates that person, and Council confirms or rejects the nomination.

Council’s four appointments are also not guaranteed to include minority-party, ideological or geographic representation. A Council majority could potentially control all four selections.

Existing restrictions would still prevent more than five commissioners from belonging to the same political party.

My Reasoning

I prefer distributing appointment power between the Executive and Council rather than allowing all nine nominations to originate with the Executive.

My position is: I support Issue 14 because it gives Council direct appointment authority and prevents one branch from originating every appointment to the Charter Review Commission.

Four members would come from the Executive, four from Council, and the ninth would require participation by both branches. My vote is yes.

However!!! Removal caveat belongs under Issue 12.

I believe shared appointment authority should be accompanied by an appropriate Council mechanism for initiating board-removal proceedings. Meaning, the council should be able to initiate removal, not just the executive.

Also, council’s four appointments are also not guaranteed to include minority-party, ideological or geographic representation.

Current restrictions would still prevent more than five commissioners from belonging to the same political party.

Stay Angry

The Cuyahoga County Democratic Party issued its endorsements for Issues 3 and 10 through 14. This is my take on Issue 13

Democratic Party position: Yes
Matt’s position: No

Why This Issue Exists

Cuyahoga County has two legal offices:

• An independently elected County Prosecutor

• A Law Director appointed by the County Executive and confirmed by Council (remember yesterday’s post?)

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The Law Director serves at the pleasure of the County Executive. At the same time, the Law Director advises both the Executive and County Council.

Ohio law assigns significant civil and litigation responsibilities to county prosecutors. Cuyahoga County’s Charter also created a Law Department, producing overlapping authority.

A 2025 Ohio Attorney General opinion concluded that several statutory duties remained with the Prosecutor because they had not been properly transferred through the Charter. Agreements between county officials were not enough to reassign those legal duties.

Proposed Division Under Issue 13

The Prosecutor would control litigation. The Law Director would handle much of the county’s transactional and daily legal work.

County officials could still seek advice from the Prosecutor.

Main Objections

The Handoff Problem

The Law Director could advise the county to enter into a contract without requiring the Prosecutor’s approval.

If that contract later produces a lawsuit, the Prosecutor would be responsible for defending the county even though the Prosecutor may not have drafted, negotiated or approved the original agreement.

My concern is that the Prosecutor could be forced to clean up a legal problem created by another office.

Divided Records and Responsibility

Separate offices may require files, discovery, negotiations and institutional knowledge to be transferred between departments.

I prefer one legal department with responsibility for matters from initial advice through final litigation.

Council Shares the Executive’s Lawyer

The Law Director advises both the Executive and Council but serves at the pleasure of the Executive.

Issue 12 does not change that arrangement.

The structural problem is:

Executive appoints Law Director → Council confirms → Law Director advises Executive and Council → Executive retains removal authority.

I am not claiming that a Law Director will provide biased legal advice. My concern is that the Law Director’s institutional independence is limited.

Preferred Model

I would place the county’s civil legal responsibilities under the independently elected Prosecutor.

That office could contain separate divisions/roles for:

• Criminal prosecution

• Civil litigation

• Contracts and transactions

• Labor and employment

• Public records

• Risk management

• Advice to the Executive

• Independent advice to County Council

Separate attorneys could be assigned to the Executive and Council while remaining inside one overall legal department.

Issue 13 makes the division of work clearer, but it still divides responsibility between two separately controlled legal offices.

I would rather have contracts, negotiations, legal advice, litigation, discovery and institutional knowledge under the elected Prosecutor’s Office.

Council should also have legal counsel institutionally independent from the Executive.

My vote is no.

Stay Angry

The Cuyahoga County Democratic Party issued its endorsements for Issues 3 and 10 through 14. This is my take on Issue 12.

Democratic Party position: Yes
Matt’s position: Yes, with a caveat

Current System

For the covered boards, commissions, agencies and authorities:

1. The County Executive selects an appointee.

2. County Council confirms the appointment.

3. The Executive may later remove the appointee.

Council generally does not have the same confirmation role when the person is removed.

What a Yes Vote Does

Issue 12 requires Council to confirm an Executive-initiated removal of covered board or commission members.

The new process would generally be:

1. Executive appoints.

2. Council confirms.

3. Executive initiates removal.

4. Council confirms or rejects the removal.

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What It Does Not Do

Issue 12 does not generally allow Council to initiate removal proceedings independently.

Council could reject or approve a removal initiated by the Executive, but it could not decide on its own to begin removing a covered board member under this amendment.

Specific boards may have separate removal procedures established by state law, the Charter or county ordinances.

Issue 12 also does not apply to the county Law Director. The Law Director is an appointed county officer, not a board or commission member covered by this proposal. This will be important in the future. Remember this.

My Reasoning

I support requiring Council confirmation because board members should exercise independent, advisory, regulatory or quasi-judicial responsibilities.

If Council participates in appointing a person, it is reasonable for Council to participate when that person is removed.

My caveat is that the authority remains one-directional. The Executive can initiate removal, but Council cannot.

I support Issue 12 because Council already participates in confirming appointments and should also have a role when the Executive attempts to remove those appointees.

However, Council should also have a defined process for initiating removal proceedings. That process could require cause, notice, a hearing or a supermajority vote so it cannot be abused.

Stay Angry.

made a statement saying, “It's hard to take any of your arguments about levies seriously when you make no mention of the impact of HB920.” Ok, let’s look at this through the lens of HB920 and inflation.

My objection is that Issue 11 combines renewal and expansion into one vote.

First, I do not think this proposal is structured properly. The county is asking for far too much money to describe this as merely an adjustment for past inflation or protection against future inflation.

Second, the county is combining two separate questions:

1. Should we continue funding the existing Health and Human Services levy?

2. Does the county need substantially more money?

Those are not the same question.

I may support continuing the existing levy without supporting this enormous increase. But Issue 11 does not give voters that choice. It combines the renewal of the existing 4.7 mills with an additional 2.5 mills and forces voters to accept or reject both.

In my opinion, putting those two separate decisions together is dishonest.

The Existing 4.7-Mill Levy

• Estimated revenue when collections began in 2021: $143.58 million

• Estimated revenue today: $150.74 million

• Increase in annual revenue: $7.16 million

• Percentage increase: Approximately 5%

To maintain the same purchasing power it had in 2021, the existing levy would need to collect approximately $177.5 million today.

That means the existing levy is approximately $26.8 million below its inflation-adjusted value.

I understand that providing the same services costs more today. The numbers support that argument.

But Issue 11 is asking for substantially more than an inflation adjustment.

What Is House Bill 920?

Ohio passed House Bill 920 in 1976.

HB 920 generally prevents an existing levy from collecting substantially more money simply because existing property values increase.

When existing properties rise in value, the effective tax rate is generally reduced so that the levy continues collecting roughly the same amount of money.

HB 920 does not automatically adjust levy revenue for inflation.

Revenue can still increase through:

• New construction

• Newly taxable property

• Expansions and improvements added to the property-tax base

This helps explain why the existing levy’s revenue increased by approximately 5%, even though HB 920 limits revenue growth resulting from the appreciation of existing properties.

What Happened to Residents’ Wages?

From 2021 through 2025:

• Average Cuyahoga County wages increased approximately 16%

• Consumer prices increased approximately 18.8%

• Real purchasing power declined approximately 2.3%

Wages did not decline in actual dollars. They declined after accounting for inflation.

The average worker is making more money, but that money buys less.

That is important because the county is not asking people with greater purchasing power to contribute more. It is asking people whose purchasing power has already declined to accept another property-tax increase.

What Issue 11 Would Do

Issue 11 would:

• Renew the existing 4.7 mills

• Add another 2.5 mills

• Create a total levy of 7.2 mills

• Continue for 10 years

The millage would increase by approximately 53.2%.

A NO vote would reject the combined renewal and increase. It would not immediately eliminate the existing levy, which remains authorized through the end of 2028.

The county has time to return with a better proposal that separates renewal from expansion.

How Much More Money Would the County Receive?

• Estimated revenue from the existing levy: $150.74 million annually

• Estimated additional revenue: $110.76 million annually

• Estimated total revenue under Issue 11: $261.5 million annually

That represents an estimated annual revenue increase of approximately 73.5%.

The county is not asking for another 5%, 10% or even 20%. It is asking for approximately $110.76 million in additional annual revenue.

How Does That Compare With Inflation?

A 73.5% increase is equivalent to 10 years of inflation averaging approximately 5.7% every year.

For comparison:

• 2% annual inflation over 10 years: 21.9%

• 3% annual inflation over 10 years: 34.4%

• 4% annual inflation over 10 years: 48%

• 5.7% annual inflation over 10 years: Approximately 73.5%

If this were genuinely an inflation adjustment, the county should ask for an increase that reflects inflation. Instead, it is asking for an immediate revenue increase far beyond ordinary long-term inflation projections.

When Is Enough Enough?

Cuyahoga County residents have already lost approximately 2.3% of their purchasing power because wages have not kept pace with inflation.

At the same time, families are paying more for housing, groceries, utilities, insurance and nearly everything else. Now the county is asking them to pay even more in taxes.

• Issue 10: An additional 2.25-mill property tax

• Issue 11: An additional 2.5 mills, combined with the renewal of the existing 4.7-mill levy

• County jail: A 40-year extension of the county’s 0.25% sales tax

• Gateway and the Guardians: Another potential public-funding request that could eventually reach taxpayers

Not only have we lost purchasing power because of inflation, but we are being asked to approve one additional tax after another.

When is enough enough?

The existing levy has not kept pace with inflation, but neither have the wages of Cuyahoga County residents. Now those same residents are being asked to approve a 53.2% increase in millage that would generate approximately 73.5% more annual revenue.

If the county needs an adjustment for inflation, then ask taxpayers for an adjustment that reflects inflation.

In my opinion, this is not an inflation adjustment. It is a cash grab beyond proportion.

If the county wants more revenue, its incentive should be to bring more residents into Cuyahoga County and expand the tax base. Build more housing units, attract more people and businesses, and create actual growth instead of repeatedly raising taxes on the people who already live here.

Stay Angry

The Cuyahoga County Democratic Party distributed its endorsements for Issues 3 and 10 through 14.

Democratic Party position: Yes
My position: No

A no vote rejects the combined renewal and increase.

It does not immediately eliminate the existing 4.7-mill levy.

What a Yes Vote Does

Issue 11 combines two separate decisions:

1. Renew the existing 4.7-mill Health and Human Services levy.

2. Add another 2.5 mills.

Together, the proposal creates a levy of up to 7.2 mills for 10 years.

The county estimates that the full levy would raise approximately $261.5 million annually. The additional 2.5 mills would reportedly generate approximately $110.76 million in new annual revenue.

The county has identified possible uses including:

• Child-placement costs

• Services for older adults

• Homelessness services

• The ADAMHS Board

• MetroHealth

• Juvenile Court

• Other health and social services

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What a No Vote Does

A no vote rejects the combined renewal and increase.

It does not immediately eliminate the existing 4.7-mill levy.

That levy remains authorized through the end of 2028.

Therefore:

• A no vote prevents the additional 2.5 mills from beginning.

• The existing levy continues through 2028.

• County officials could return to voters with another proposal before the existing levy expires.

• If no replacement or renewal is subsequently approved, the existing levy would expire after 2028.

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What Is a Mill?

• A mill is $1 (one dollar) in tax for every $1,000 of assessed property value.

  Ohio generally assesses residential property at 35% of its market value. That means a house with a county market value of $300,000 has an assessed value of:

$300,000 × 35% = $105,000

• One mill on that property would cost approximately:

$105,000 ÷ 1,000 = $105 annually

• That works out to approximately $8.75 per month for each new mill.

  For the additional 2.5-mill levy:

$105 × 2.5 = approximately $262.50 annually

• For a property valued at $300,000, the additional portion of Issue 11 would therefore cost approximately:

  • $262.50 annually

  • About $21.88 monthly

  The county provides an online calculator that residents can use with the official market value assigned to their property. Cuyahoga County levy calculator

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My Reasoning

My objection is that Issue 11 combines renewal and expansion into one vote.

Voters cannot support continuation of the existing levy while rejecting the increase.

This is political extortion.

Voting no does not immediately eliminate the existing Health and Human Services levy. The county will continue collecting the existing 4.7 mills through 2028.

We should be able to reevaluated both the existing millage and an increase separately.

Stay Angry.

This is a continuation of my evaluation of the issues appearing on the November ballot.

The Cuyahoga County Democratic Party distributed its endorsements for Issues 3 and 10 through 14.

The party recommends voting yes on Issue 10.

My recommendation is NO

What Is Issue 10?

Issue 10 is an additional 2.25-mill property-tax levy for the Cuyahoga County Board of Developmental Disabilities.

If approved, the levy would last 10 years and raise approximately $99.7 million annually. The money could be used for developmental-disability programs and services, as well as acquiring, constructing, renovating, financing, maintaining and operating facilities.

Cuyahoga DD provides services that include early intervention, speech and occupational therapy, employment assistance, behavioral support, housing assistance, service coordination, respite care and other resources for residents with developmental disabilities.

What Is a Mill?

A mill is $1 ( one dollar)) in tax for every $1,000 of assessed property value.

Ohio generally assesses residential property at 35% of its market value. That means a house with a county market value of $300,000 has an assessed value of:

$300,000 × 35% = $105,000

One mill on that property would cost approximately:

$105,000 ÷ 1,000 = $105 annually

That works out to approximately $8.75 per month for each new mill.

For a 2.25-mill levy:

$105 × 2.25 = approximately $236.25 annually

For a property valued at $300,000, Issue 10 would therefore cost approximately:

• $236.25 annually

• About $19.69 monthly

The county provides an online calculator that residents can use with the official market value assigned to their property. Cuyahoga County levy calculator

This Is an Additional Levy

Cuyahoga County voters approved a separate 3.9-mill Developmental Disabilities levy in 2005.

That levy is continuing, meaning it has no automatic expiration date. Cuyahoga DD states that the levy remains in place today.

Issue 10 would not replace the existing levy. It would add another 2.25 mills for 10 years.

If Issue 10 passes:

• The existing 3.9-mill levy continues.

• An additional 2.25 mills is collected for 10 years.

• The new levy raises approximately $99.7 million annually.

If Issue 10 fails:

• The proposed 2.25-mill levy does not begin.

• The existing 3.9-mill continuing levy remains.

• Current funding is not immediately eliminated by the failure of Issue 10.

That distinction is important. Voting against the proposal would not repeal the levy approved in 2005. Voting for it would authorize an additional revenue source.

The Questions Voters Should Ask

County Council and the County Executive have expanded staff, created new boards and departments, gone through ARPA money and reserve funds, and created and spent slush funds. Now they are asking you for more money while failing to practice fiscal responsibility.

The policy question is whether County Council and the County Executive have demonstrated that the existing levy and other revenue sources are truly insufficient to maintain the current level of service, and, if so, what steps they could have taken earlier to avoid or reduce the need for additional taxpayer funding.

The Household Affordability Context

Issue 10 is appearing at a time when households are facing higher costs for housing, utilities, insurance, groceries and fuel.

As of this writing, Ohio has $4.60 per gallon for regular gasoline and $6.70 for diesel.

Property owners may also be dealing with higher tax bills because of new levies (see tomorrow’s post about issue 11), updated property values or new construction. The county explains that additional levies and property reappraisals are two factors that can increase a homeowner’s bill.

We have to consider this in the context of all prices going up, from everything you buy at the grocery store to utilities and property taxes. For example, a Bay Village home that was valued at $175,000 before 2020 and had an annual property tax bill of about $4,200/yr, could now be valued at $300,000 or more, with an estimated annual tax bill of around $7,100. That is an increase of almost $3,000 per year, or another $250 per month.

Issue 10 represents approximately another $20 per month.

Issue 10 therefore presents a specific choice: authorize another 2.25 mills for 10 years or continue funding the Board through the existing 3.9-mill continuing levy and its other current revenue sources.

Look for tomorrow’s newsletter, when we will examine Issue 11 and the proposed Health and Human Services levy.

Stay Angry.

I recently received an email from the Cuyahoga County Democratic Party informing members how its Executive Committee voted on the upcoming ballot issues.

I want to go through these issues individually because there is more to consider than a simple yes or no.

I will examine one issue each day, explain what it does, describe the practical consequences of both choices and give my own position.

We will start with Issue 3.

The Democratic Party’s Recommendation

The Cuyahoga County Democratic Party Executive Committee recommends voting NO on Issue 3.

My recommendation is also NO.

My objection is that Ohio already requires photo identification for in-person voting. Issue 3 does not create a requirement that currently does not exist. It takes the existing basic requirement and places it into the Ohio Constitution.

What Is Issue 3?

Issue 3 is a proposed constitutional amendment establishing minimum voter-identification requirements in Ohio.

Ohio currently requires voters to show an acceptable, unexpired photo ID when voting in person. Accepted identification includes an Ohio driver’s license or state identification card, a United States passport, certain military identification cards, an Ohio National Guard identification card and a Department of Veterans Affairs identification card.

The real question is not whether Ohio should have voter ID. We already do.

The question is whether that requirement belongs in the Ohio Constitution.

What Would a Yes Vote Do?

A yes vote would place photo ID requirements into the Ohio Constitution.

Government-issued photo identification would become constitutionally required for in-person voting. The General Assembly would retain the authority to approve additional forms of photo identification.

For people voting through another method, lawmakers could require approved photo identification or allow a signature accompanied by an authorized identifying number.

What Would a No Vote Do?

A no vote would leave voter-identification requirements primarily in state law.

It would not eliminate Ohio’s current photo-ID requirement. Ohioans voting in person would still be required to present acceptable identification.

A no vote simply means that the requirement remains a statute that future lawmakers can update through the ordinary legislative process.

Why I Am Voting No

I support requiring identification to vote. I do not support placing a redundant requirement into the Constitution when Ohio already has a voter-ID law.

My concern is flexibility.

Technology changes. Security practices change. Ohio may eventually develop better and more accessible methods of confirming a voter’s identity. That could involve improved digital identification, biometric verification or technology that does not exist yet.

I am not arguing that Ohio should immediately adopt facial recognition, fingerprints or another biometric system. I am saying that the state should retain enough flexibility to consider new security methods when they become available.

The Constitution require photo identification for in-person voting. Replacing that requirement with a fundamentally different form of identity verification could require another constitutional amendment.

That is an unnecessary restriction when Ohio already has a functioning photo-ID statute.

Election security is important. So is the ability to update election security when technology and circumstances change. We should not use the Constitution to lock in a statutory requirement simply because we agree with the requirement as it exists today.

For those reasons, my recommendation is no on Issue 3. On this issue, I agree with the Cuyahoga County Democratic Party Executive Committee’s recommendation.

Look for tomorrow’s newsletter, when we will examine Issue 10 and the proposed Cuyahoga County Developmental Disabilities levy.

Stay Angry.

Yesterday was the League of Women Voters forum for the Cuyahoga County Council District 5 race between incumbent Mike Gallagher and Democratic challenger Courtney Scheff.

This is my district, so of course I am paying closer attention to this race. I also plan to watch the other League of Women Voters forums and give my opinions on those races.

I watched the entire forum because I enjoy this stuff. I understand that most people do not want to sit through the whole video, so I broke it down into something easier to follow.

First, I am giving you my reaction to the candidates’ opening statements and each major question.

After that, you will find a short TL;DR explaining the central message of each candidate.

Finally, I have included a cleaned transcript (with the help of Chat GPT) of the questions and answers so you can read what the candidates actually said without sitting through the entire forum.

You can also watch the League of Women Voters forum through its YouTube channel.

Opening Statements

Mike Gallagher began with a few jokes and then admitted that he had not prepared an opening statement.

That annoyed me.

This is the same question I had earlier in the campaign.

When I first began comparing the candidates, Mike did not have a real campaign website or a clearly organized platform. I had to go through his public record to determine what he supported. He eventually created a website, which was good, but then he came into what may be the only public forum where voters will see both candidates together and announced that he had not prepared an opening statement.

Why would you not prepare an opening statement?

Courtney came prepared. She was clearly more nervous and jittery than Mike, but experience and familiarity matter in these forums. Mike has spent years in public office and was obviously more comfortable speaking off the cuff.

Courtney still presented a clear statement about what she wanted to accomplish and how she planned to approach the job. Mike talked about his biography, experience and leadership, but Courtney did a better job of presenting an actual plan.

Mike may have more experience, but preparation also tells voters how seriously you take their time.

Question 1: Gridlock and Factionalism

Courtney’s answer was that professionalism, listening and finding common ground could help repair the divisions within county government. She also said she respects both County Executive Chris Ronayne and County Prosecutor Michael O’Malley and hopes she can serve as a bridge between them.

That sounds pleasant, but Courtney sometimes seems determined to be friends with everybody, which can leave voters unsure where she actually stands.

If two powerful county officials are fighting over authority, procedure and public money, the answer cannot simply be that everyone needs to behave professionally. Sometimes one side is wrong. Sometimes somebody has to draw a line.

Mike said something more revealing. He described County Council members learning about major decisions through the newspaper instead of from the executive branch.

I think Mike was saying out loud what usually remains behind the scenes. It is difficult to perform meaningful oversight when the newspaper tells council members what their own government is doing.

If County Council is expected to approve contracts, budgets and borrowing, it should not be the last institution to learn what the executive branch has decided.

Question 2: District Priorities

Mike went directly to county finances, the jail, the justice system and the sales tax used to finance these projects.

That is where my concern is too.

Cuyahoga County has several expensive commitments coming due at the same time. The new Central Services Campus is currently budgeted at approximately $889 million. The county has also committed approximately $150 million to renovating the existing Justice Center. Together, those projects put justice-system capital commitments above $1 billion. The jail campus alone was discussed as roughly a $500 million project in 2021 before increasing to $750 million and then over $900 million.

These are legitimate questions. Where is the money coming from? How much will taxpayers ultimately repay after interest? What else will be crowded out of the budget?

Courtney focused on preserving essential services and improving communication about programs already available to residents.

Those are good goals, but they did not address the financial problem looming over the county. Her answer was largely about what government can provide. Mike’s answer was about how government will pay for everything it has already promised.

Question 3: Gun Violence

Both candidates made legitimate points about gun violence.

Courtney argued for a combination of policing and prevention. Mike focused on illegal guns, gangs and the financial burden of extending sheriff’s services into communities like East Cleveland.

There is a real gun-violence problem in Cleveland and other parts of Cuyahoga County. Prevention programs, effective policing and removing illegal guns from the streets can all be part of the response.

But the money question does not disappear.

Courtney again discussed investing in additional programs. Mike said the Sheriff’s Department is already overstretched.

The county must decide which programs are effective, which responsibilities belong to municipalities and how much the county can realistically afford. Every worthwhile idea still needs a funding source.

Question 4: What Should Be Cut Before Asking for More Money?

This was one of the better exchanges.

Mike proposed a state performance audit that would examine staffing, spending, duplication and long-term planning. He also raised the possibility that artificial intelligence and automation could affect county employment.

Courtney argued that elected council members should not outsource their responsibility to the state. She said council members are elected to decide which programs work, which ones do not and what the county can afford.

Courtney made a good point. A performance audit could provide valuable information, but an audit does not make the political decisions. County Council still has to vote.

She also acknowledged that even if the HHS levy passes, the county should not treat the new revenue as permission to create and expand programs without restraint.

Mike offered a mechanism for reviewing the county. Courtney emphasized the responsibility to act on the findings. Both answers had value, but neither completely explained what either candidate would actually cut.

Question 5: The HHS Levy

Both candidates acknowledged the importance of Health and Human Services programs, but they approached the levy differently.

Courtney supports it and placed much of the responsibility for the county’s financial pressure on state and federal cuts.

Mike voted to place the levy before voters, but he criticized county officials for spending through reserves and returning to taxpayers earlier than expected.

The levy would increase the existing rate by 2.5 mills, costing approximately $87.50 more annually for every $100,000 in market value. County officials project that it would add approximately $111 million to the HHS budget. Without increased revenue, the county projects that HHS reserves could fall to roughly $3 million by the end of the year.

Courtney is correct that federal and state decisions affect the county. The county cannot control Washington or Columbus.

But that cannot become an excuse for avoiding local accountability.

If revenues decline, elected officials have to make adjustments. If officials knew reserves were falling, the response should have started before the account was nearly depleted.

You cannot spend through reserves, avoid hard choices and then tell residents that essential services will disappear unless they approve more taxes. To me, that feels less like responsible budgeting and more like using those services as political extortion against taxpayers.

Blaming the Trump administration may explain part of the financial pressure, but cannot be an excuse to avoid doing your job in a timely manner.

Question 6: Accountability Within HHS

Courtney correctly pointed out that saying what should have been done 16 years ago does not answer what the county must do now.

That was one of her strongest points.

She said council should look for duplication and decide what can be reduced, regardless of whether the levy passes. I hope she applies that standard to every county budget and contract.

Mike’s performance-audit proposal could help identify waste and duplication, but Courtney is right that elected officials eventually have to act.

My concern is how she will apply that reasoning to the jail.

People have told me that I should have been at the meetings three years ago if I cared about the project. That is ridiculous. The project is still underway, its price has increased dramatically, and elected officials still have a responsibility to control the cost.

Will Courtney draw a hard line on spending now? Or will she say the decision was made years ago, the bonds have been issued and the county has no choice but to continue?

You cannot use the past as an excuse for refusing to control today’s spending.

Question 7: Homelessness

Homelessness is a real issue in Cuyahoga County.

I have “family” (people very close to me) members who volunteer their time and provide medical services to people experiencing homelessness. It is an issue I have been close to for years, including while I was running for office.

Courtney emphasized mental-health treatment, education and cooperation with organizations already providing services. Mike shifted attention toward the limited amount of money available and what he sees as inadequate county support for seniors.

Those are not mutually exclusive concerns.

The county has to decide how to serve people experiencing homelessness, support seniors, fund mental-health treatment and maintain its other responsibilities with finite resources.

Everybody wants the program they care about to be fully funded. That does not mean every program can be.

The difference between what Cuyahoga County and Franklin County spend on different populations deserves closer examination, but comparisons also need to account for how each county structures, categorizes and delivers those services.

The broader question remains the same: What is the county obligated to provide, what programs produce measurable results and what can taxpayers realistically afford?

Question 8: Communication

Mike had a slow start to his campaign. His early public presence was limited, and his lack of preparation for the forum did not help.

However, I also need to be honest about my personal experience.

Mike Gallagher has called and texted me repeatedly to explain what is happening in county government. I did not beg him to do it, and I am not part of his campaign. I have never even met him in person.

I write a newsletter about local government, and I appreciate when an elected official proactively provides information.

My experience with Courtney has been different.

Courtney said she would create newsletters, use social media and communicate before decisions are made. That sounds good. I want to see whether that communication will include residents who challenge her, question the county executive or disagree with Democratic leadership.

Communication is not only sending information to supporters. It also means responding to people who challenge you and your friends.

Question 9: Data Centers

Data centers present an opportunity and a risk.

Cuyahoga County has large areas of vacant or underused land that once supported homes or industry. Some of that land could potentially support data centers or other large developments.

These projects can create construction jobs, including union jobs, but many of those jobs are temporary. Once completed, a data center may employ far fewer people than another industrial facility of comparable size.

Courtney focused on environmental protections, electrical-grid upgrades and requiring developers to absorb the costs they create. Mike emphasized local control and technological improvements in power and water usage.

Both points matter.

Communities should decide whether a project fits their land-use plans, but those decisions cannot be made in isolation when a project affects regional power supplies, water systems and neighboring municipalities.

If a data center is built, taxpayers and residential utility customers should not be stuck subsidizing its infrastructure or potential demolition and cleanup.

Question 10: Artificial Intelligence

The fear around artificial intelligence often resembles the fear surrounding every major new technology.

Courtney even joked about watching Terminator. People also think of HAL 9000 from 2001: A Space Odyssey and decades of movies about computers taking control.

That does not mean every concern is irrational, but government policy cannot be based on science fiction.

Courtney was correct that major regulation of artificial intelligence is primarily a federal issue. A county government is not going and should not determine the future of AI development.

The county should focus on what it can control: whether its agencies use AI, how automated decisions are reviewed, what happens to residents’ data and whether a human being remains accountable for consequential decisions.

Mike was honest that he did not know enough to offer a complete answer. I would rather hear that than watch a politician pretend to understand a complicated technology. However, this is frontier technology and maybe Mike should have studied already.

Question 11: Flock Cameras

The candidates largely agreed that license-plate readers can help solve crimes but can also be abused.

Courtney emphasized contracts and legal guardrails. Mike emphasized local control, consequences for misuse and the possibility of law-enforcement employees using databases to monitor people for personal reasons.

I do not think it is enough to say that an attorney should review the contract.

The county should not sign a contract for mass-surveillance technology unless every search is logged, traceable and subject to independent review. The company should provide transparent rules for data sharing, retention and access.

Employees who misuse these systems to monitor former partners, family members or innocent residents should face serious consequences.

This is not simply misuse of government property. It is the misuse of powerful surveillance technology against people who may have done nothing wrong.

If law enforcement expects the public to trust these tools, then law enforcement must set a higher standard for its own employees and hold them accountable with extreme punishment for misuse.

Note: neither said ban Flock and other like companies. That should be worth noting.

Question 12: Immigration and Population Growth

Courtney raised one of the most important facts of the forum.

Cuyahoga County’s recent population growth has been driven almost entirely by international migration. Between 2023 and 2024, the county gained approximately 2,000 residents. Deaths exceeded births, and 6,741 people moved elsewhere in Ohio or out of state, but those losses were offset by a net gain of 8,876 international migrants.

Mike talked about county money being spent on illegal aliens. Courtney talked about welcoming legal immigrants and recognizing their role in the county’s growth.

Both issues can exist at the same time.

The county can welcome legal immigration while still asking what services it provides, who qualifies and whether the executive branch expanded programs without sufficient council oversight.

The larger issue is why so many existing residents continue moving farther from the urban core and out of the county.

Taxes are part of that conversation. So are housing costs, zoning rules, schools, transportation and the availability of starter homes.

If the county continues raising taxes without making it easier to build housing and attract families, immigration may offset some population loss, but it will not solve the underlying problem.

Are we creating a county where people want to stay, build homes and raise families, or are we simply replacing the residents who leave?

Question 13: Inflation and Everyday Costs

Courtney made an interesting argument about Medicaid and SNAP.

If people lose benefits, they spend less at grocery stores and other businesses. Reduced spending can weaken local businesses and contribute to a cycle in which costs are spread across fewer customers.

But those benefits are still paid for with public money.

We are taxing people to provide benefits so other people can continue spending, which may help stabilize demand and prices. That does not make the programs inherently wrong, but it demonstrates how tax money is used as a market subsidy.

This problem exists at every level of government. The federal government has an enormous debt. Cities and counties are under financial pressure. Families are paying more for food, housing, utilities and borrowing.

Politically, it is easier to promise everything than to decide what government can sustainably provide.

Mike described the county as spreading peanut butter around to make everybody happy while failing to deliver the right services effectively.

That was probably the clearest description of his fiscal argument. His position is that government should identify its core responsibilities, fund them properly and stop trying to give a little money to everybody.

Question 14: The Jail

Courtney’s answer on the jail was the most troubling answer of the forum.

She said the guaranteed maximum price has been established, the bonds have been issued and delays would increase the cost. She also said the county could save money over time by investing in mental-health services and keeping people out of jail.

Reducing the jail population is a worthy goal. It does not explain why the building costs over $900 million and is the most expensive jail in the county per bed.

The project began with public estimates around $500 million. By the end of 2023, it had reached approximately $750 million. The county later presented an approximately $889 million budget for a 1,886-bed campus. County officials have argued that delays could push the cost beyond $1 billion.

The county also approved a 40-year extension of a quarter-percent sales tax without sending it to voters. The council vote was 6-5.

The Justice Center renovation is separate and is expected to cost approximately $150-$200 million.

Courtney called for continued oversight. But her answer still relied too heavily on the idea that the decisions have already been made.

That is sunk-cost logic.

The existence of bonds does not eliminate County Council’s responsibility to inspect contracts, change orders, subcontracting and every remaining dollar.

Keeping people out of jail may reduce operating costs later. It does not make an extraordinarily expensive construction project fiscally responsible.

Question 15: Browns Stadium Funding

The moderator withdrew this question after confusion over what authority the county has over the state’s stadium funding.

Question 16: Infrastructure

This is the brass tacks of government.

Roads, bridges, sewers, clean water, electricity, police, fire and basic infrastructure are the things people expect government to maintain.

Both candidates agreed that infrastructure must be preserved and that local communities need county assistance and coordination.

This is not where the county should be looking for careless cuts.

Before government expands into another program or creates another administrative office, it should make sure bridges are safe, roads are usable, sewage systems function and residents can rely on emergency services.

These responsibilities are not flashy, but they are the foundation of local government.

Question 17: Blight

Once again, the conversation returned to money.

Mike discussed earlier county investments used to demolish blighted properties. Courtney discussed grants, the Land Bank and cooperation between different levels of government.

What was missing was a serious conversation about regulation, zoning and incentives.

Not every vacant or neglected property requires the county to spend public money. Government can also examine whether its own rules are preventing property owners, builders, small developers and entrepreneurs from putting land back into productive use.

The county and municipalities should examine zoning, permitting, demolition rules, tax foreclosure and incentives for rehabilitation.

If private people can make productive use of vacant properties, government should not create unnecessary barriers.

Spending should not be the only tool anybody can imagine.

Question 18: Cooperation Between Municipalities

I do not have a major disagreement with either candidate here.

Municipal cooperation is extremely important.

I lived in Bay Village for years and now live in Berea. Development in Westlake can affect Bay Village because Bay sits downstream in the watershed toward Lake Erie. Water runs downhill. Runoff, flooding, sewers and development do not stop at a municipal border.

One city can make a decision without malice and still create problems for another community.

That is why coordination on development, sewers, water treatment, roads and emergency services can be more important than one city simply maintaining its own infrastructure.

Courtney was right that the county can encourage cooperation while respecting municipal control. Mike was also right to point toward existing shared services.

The county should help municipalities coordinate before a development creates a problem, not arrive afterward with public money to repair the damage.

Question 19: Putting People Above Party

This was the final question, and my opinion is shaped partly by my personal experience with both candidates.

Mike Gallagher has called and texted me with information even though I am not part of his campaign and have never met him in person.

Courtney’s campaign account has removed tags from my posts about County Council issues.

Again, I cannot know her reason for doing that. But when a candidate promises communication while avoiding critical posts from someone in her own party, I notice.

Courtney’s political support is rooted largely in the Democratic Party, while Gallagher has built his identity around fighting with both parties when he believes taxpayers are being ignored.

Independence can become obstruction, just as party cooperation can become rubber-stamping.

My concern is whether Courtney will serve as an independent member of County Council or is she just a reliable vote for the executive branch. Chris Ronayne did donate $5k to her campaign and hold a fund raiser for her.

During this forum, she criticized state and federal decisions repeatedly but offered little direct criticism of Ronayne’s agenda. She defended many of the same programs and approaches while presenting herself as the person who would improve communication around them.

I did not hear enough evidence that she would act as a meaningful check on the executive.

Conclusion

This forum unfolded largely the way I expected.

The central issue in this race is fiscal responsibility.

Families are paying more for groceries, housing, utilities and borrowing. At the same time, Cuyahoga County is asking voters for a larger HHS levy, financing over prices jail campus, extending a sales tax for 40 years and committing another approximately $150-$200 million to the Justice Center. Not to mention the levies that are coming on the ballot.

Gallagher made fiscal restraint the center of nearly every answer.

Courtney talked about responsible budgeting, duplication and the need to make choices. But she usually paired those statements with preserving, improving or expanding services. She did not clearly explain where she would impose limits on the executive branch or which spending she would oppose.

That is my problem.

It is easy to say that every program is important. It is harder to tell people that the money is finite.

The jail was discussed as a roughly $500 million project in 2021. It rose to approximately $750 million and then approximately $900 million. County officials themselves have warned that it could push over $1 billion. I think we will be looking at $1.2-$1.4 when it is all done.

That does not include the separate Justice Center renovation.

I do not accept the idea that, because votes were taken and bonds were issued, taxpayers should stop questioning the price.

Nor do I accept telling residents that services will be cut unless they approve more taxes while county officials continue approving other major expenses.

That is playing chicken with taxpayers and the people who rely on those services.

Courtney had more preparation, but Gallagher could pull from his extensive experience. She communicated her priorities clearly. She offered several strong answers, particularly on immigration, municipal cooperation and the need to make decisions now instead of complaining about what should have happened years ago.

But Mike Gallagher was the only candidate who made fiscal restraint the organizing principle of his entire argument.

At this moment, with billion-dollar construction commitments and additional taxes on the ballot, Gallagher’s warning is the one I believe County Council most needs to hear.

TL;DR

Mike Gallagher: Gallagher’s central message was that Cuyahoga County has a spending and leadership problem. He wants the county to return to its core responsibilities, conduct a state performance audit, eliminate waste and duplication, and stop creating or expanding programs without sustainable funding. He repeatedly criticized the rising jail cost, the extension of the sales tax, the early HHS levy request and what he described as a lack of collaboration between County Council and the executive. His broader themes were fiscal restraint, local control, support for law enforcement, improved services for seniors, cooperation among municipalities and responsiveness to every constituent regardless of political party.

Courtney Scheff: Scheff’s central message was that Cuyahoga County must protect essential services while making tougher and more transparent budget decisions. She supports the HHS levy, the county Welcome Center, investments in mental-health care, homelessness prevention, benefit specialists and programs that keep people from entering the criminal-justice system. At the same time, she said County Council must identify ineffective programs, eliminate duplication and stop creating new programs without the money to sustain them. Her broader themes were communication before decisions are made, professional cooperation within county government, preventive services, responsible oversight of contracts and technology, collaboration with local governments and accessible public service for every resident.

Complete Transcript

Opening Statements

Mike Gallagher

Thank you to the League of Women Voters, the City of Berea, and all my friends and neighbors here.

Mike Gallagher was born in Lakewood, Ohio, to an Irish Catholic family with five sisters and myself. I learned pretty quickly, early in life, who had the power in the world. Even our dog was female.

I graduated from Lakewood St. Edward High School and then Cleveland State. I started working for the state Court of Appeals, where I worked for 31 years before retiring.

I served on Strongsville City Council for 11 years, including three years as council president. When I first started in Strongsville, we were in a very bad position. We had $70,000 in the bank, if you can believe that. After Mayor Perciak’s untimely death, I took over finance. We turned the City of Strongsville from a dangerous financial situation into one of the rare cities in Ohio with a AAA rating, which it still maintains. I am very proud of my colleagues who are still there.

I have been on County Council since its inception. It has been a learning experience that I think everybody should go through. We came out of the corruption phase of Cuyahoga County, got together and quickly became what I would consider a working machine.

We had to get a county up and running. We had to write all the rules and do everything ourselves. The keys were on the counter. The first day I met with some of my colleagues, there were three or four of us in a room. The phone rang, and we all looked at each other like, “Now what?” We had no employees. We were three council people sitting there.

That is where we started, and this is where we are today. I am pretty proud of where we got to. We have glitches and problems. Everybody does. Every council and every city does, but you work through them the best you can.

Leadership matters, and that is going to be an important part of my campaign. Without leadership, you have bigger problems than what we already have.

We will move forward. We will get through the tough times, and hopefully, down the line, Cuyahoga County will once again be one of the gems of Ohio.

Courtney Scheff

My name is Courtney Scheff. I grew up in a union home. My dad’s good union job gave my family stability, but when layoffs threatened that stability, government programs were there as a safety net.

Today, that safety net is under attack. We have watched for years as the federal and state governments have made cuts to programs and transferred the tax burden onto local residents. Our county has become the last line of defense for the people who need the most help, and I am running to hold that line for those people.

I bring a background that has prepared me for exactly that. I am a Navy veteran, an attorney and a mom. I began my career as a JAG officer in the United States Navy, where I learned leadership and accountability.

More recently, I worked in the Cuyahoga County Prosecutor’s Office, so I have direct experience working in our county government. When I am elected, I will be the only attorney sitting on County Council. That means I will bring my training in listening, evaluating the facts and spotting issues before they become problems.

As a mom in today’s world, I know what it means when government gets it right, and I know how high the stakes are when government gets it wrong.

I have three priorities on council. First, maintaining the essential services that people rely on. Second, protecting taxpayers through responsible budgeting. Third, communicating consistently and honestly with the residents of District 5.

Here is how I will do that, the same way I have done everything in my life: by listening first and then leading with transparency and accountability.

District 5 residents deserve to know what is happening in their government before decisions are made, not after. That is the change we need in this district. Real public service that keeps our residents engaged and involved.

I look forward to your questions tonight.

Questions and Answers

Question 1: Gridlock and factionalism in county government

“There have been numerous clashes reported between members of the executive branch of the county over procedure and budget. Can you give examples of how you would work to build a county government that avoids gridlock and factionalism?”

Courtney Scheff

It starts with professionalism. I have seen and noticed the public spats between various people in our county government.

Let’s start at the top. I have worked with Mike O’Malley. I am friends with Chris Ronayne. I respect both of those people, and I believe I can hopefully be a bridge between them.

As far as County Council, you have to listen. It is just like listening to residents. You have to listen to your fellow council members, hear where they are coming from and then try to see if you can find common ground.

If you cannot, that is fine, but do not accuse them of things. Do not turn it into public spats for personal gain. Agree that you disagree, take your votes and move on.

Once you have taken those votes, let’s work in the government together instead of looking backward and attacking decisions made in the past.

Mike Gallagher

I am going to assume that has to do with what we are all reading about in the newspaper. The reality is, and I go back to leadership, you have to have camaraderie and leadership.

I think we have that, or at least had that, for the first 12 years. Just recently, and when I say recently, within the past three years, it really has gone into the dumpster.

Things get done when council has no idea what is going on. When you are a councilman and you read things in the newspaper about decisions that have been made by the higher-ups, it is not collaborative. It is not helpful, and it is very much a negative.

The council, for the most part, really does get along. We consider ourselves family. We spat, but we are family.

Question 2: The most important issues in District 5

“What are the top two or three issues specific to this district that you would approach on council directly to improve the lives of your constituents?”

Mike Gallagher

I would suggest that we have big issues on the table, and one is our finances, which have been systematically destroyed.

We have to build a justice center. Discussions are not even happening yet. We had a jail program for $700 million. It is now $1 billion. That is a big issue. That money has to come from somewhere, and that somewhere was a quarter-percent sales tax that was shoved down your backsides by the administration we are dealing with.

When we handed the jail and justice center to the administration, it was $1.4 billion. The jail alone is now $1 billion. The justice center is probably going to be $1 billion.

To borrow that money is $4 billion. A quarter percent at a 3 percent return a year, which is reasonable, is close to $6 billion.

My question has been, and your question should be, where is the other $2 billion going? One billion is going into the general fund, and there is hardly anybody in this room who knows that.

You are paying a regressive tax.

Courtney Scheff

I would say my top two priorities in this district are, number one, maintaining the essential services people need.

Believe it or not, when I go to doors and talk to voters, we have people who are on Medicaid and SNAP and cannot access the services they need. There are people in our district who have no idea about the programs and services that the county provides.

My second priority is making sure that we are actually communicating in this district.

People do not know about the Great Estates program. Are you all aware that, if you are over a certain age, you can have access to getting a transfer-on-death certificate for free through the county program?

There is also Senior Transportation Connection. I have talked to so many seniors in our district who are unaware that they can get rides to the doctor for a low fee.

That is something I want to make sure people know about through constant communication.

My top two priorities are maintaining essential services and making sure people know about them.

Question 3: Gun violence and support for law enforcement

“Gun violence remains a major concern in Northeast Ohio. What actions would you support? How would you strengthen county support for law enforcement and emergency services?”

Courtney Scheff

Guns on our streets in Cuyahoga County are a massive problem. There are children with automatic weapons. I saw it constantly in the County Prosecutor’s Office. It is a real problem.

What can the county do about it? First, state and federal laws could certainly help, but the county needs to make sure we are funding our sheriff’s patrols so they can continue to catch the guns that are on the streets in the hands of children and adults. We have to make sure we can get those guns off the streets.

Second, we need to make sure we have prevention in our communities. Cleveland just released the results of its RISE program over the summer. It has had a lot of success with different programs that address prevention, as well as policing, to make sure crime is stopped before it becomes criminal action and sends people to jail.

We need a well-rounded approach to gun violence that includes not just policing, but also prevention.

Mike Gallagher

The county council, through Councilman Houser, started a gun program. It is in its infancy.

It is an issue, and it is not guns. It is illegal guns, and they are everywhere.

Our sheriff’s department has been pretty lucky working in the downtown area, but we do not have enough money to provide the necessary services.

We are serving East Cleveland right now. Nobody in this room knows that, but we are doing that on our dime. The sheriff has no money for it, but we are going to have to find out how to pay for it.

Cleveland, East Cleveland and the inner-ring suburbs have gun violence everywhere, but you really have to find out where this problem begins.

These kids are getting guns because of the gangs. It all starts with those gangs.

Question 4: What should be cut before asking taxpayers for more money?

“Cuyahoga County is facing growing demands for services, which is putting more pressure on revenues. What spending would you consider reducing, eliminating or consolidating before asking taxpayers for more money?”

Mike Gallagher

I think the easiest thing to do, and they did this with the Strongsville schools when they could not pass a levy, is to do a performance audit through the state.

They will go through you with a fine-tooth comb, find out where you are missing services, where you have too much and what you should do to adjust. They will give you a five-year plan.

For the cost of that, you are going to see changes.

Also, with AI coming in, we are going to start losing people. Now you have a double-edged sword. You have county employees who thought they had a career, and AI is going to be taking some of those jobs.

What do we do with those people?

We have some big issues on the horizon involving technology and the good and bad things that it brings.

Courtney Scheff

We are elected as County Council members to prioritize which programs are most effective and which programs are using your dollars most efficiently.

Those are our decisions to make. We do not need to relegate that to the state. We need to make the decisions we were elected to make.

There are 11 County Council members and an executive. It is our responsibility, as elected officials, to be honest about what is going to happen.

If the HHS levy does not pass, programs are going to go away. Many of these programs are really good programs, but that is where you have to make decisions about what you are going to fund and what you are not.

I do not want to see us creating new programs if we do not have the funding to do it, even if we pass the HHS levy.

The federal and state governments have put us in a bind. We have to decide, as a county and a County Council, what is most effective, what helps the most people and what we have to let go.

Question 5: The Health and Human Services levy

“What is your stance on the upcoming HHS levy? Do you support it or not, and why or why not?”

Courtney Scheff

I do support the levy.

I think it is incredibly unfortunate that local taxpayers have been left with the burden of having to take care of their fellow neighbors.

Again, the federal and state cuts include cuts to local government funding and programs like Medicaid and SNAP. This next year alone, the federal cuts from the Big Beautiful Bill are going to cut $9 million from administrative costs, not to mention the Local Government Fund that was cut years ago by the state, and on and on.

That means, unfortunately, that it is up to local taxpayers to decide whether it is worth it to take care of our neighbors.

Like Mr. Gallagher, I would have voted to put it on the ballot. It is going to be up to all of you to decide whether we can afford to do it as a county.

Mike Gallagher

I voted to put it on the ballot.

The important thing is that the HHS levy is going on the ballot two years early because the administration spent through the reserve.

We had $30 million in reserve, 10 percent. They spent $26 million and said, “We lost money. We do not have any money because of costs.”

When you run out of money at your house, you do not walk next door and steal steaks. You cut at home, and you provide what you can provide with what the citizens have given you to provide those services.

We are going two years early. They spent through the reserve, and under the council rules, they were supposed to return that money.

Their answer to returning the money is to go to the ballot and ask for more money.

Developmental Disabilities is the same thing. These are fabulous programs that are desperately needed. They have $100 million in the bank, and they are going a year early.

Use the calculators on my website. It is going to cost me, if I vote for both of these on top of what I am paying now, $900 more a year.

I do not know how a senior in this room is going to be able to afford that.

Question 6: Fiscal accountability within HHS

“How would you build more accountability into the fiscal responsibility of HHS?”

Mike Gallagher

I go back to the performance audit.

Since we have been there, from day one, we all knew it. We still know it, but again, it goes to leadership. Leadership makes decisions.

We should have done a performance audit at the beginning. It would have gone through everything we spend, all the employees we have, where we are strong, where we are weak, where we can cut and where we can add.

We have 25,000 nonprofits in Cuyahoga County. They are all fighting for the same money.

I would do a performance audit, find out what it says and promise the taxpayers that, for whatever it costs, and it will be under $200,000, we are going to follow the five-year plan.

We will be in good shape.

Courtney Scheff

I appreciate that plan. It is about 16 years too late.

We have to decide, again, as a council, what we are going to prioritize and what we are not.

I would treat the HHS fund the same way whether this levy passes or does not pass.

If it passes, we still need to look for duplication between nonprofits and public services. We need to make the priorities. We have to decide.

It is not enough to say that the state can do the review. Sure, that helps, but we are the ones elected to decide what the priorities are.

My goal is to make sure we find duplication in the programs, spend taxpayers’ dollars wisely and responsibly, and ask the right questions to understand what is happening.

We cannot sustain this, whether the levy passes or not.

Question 7: Homelessness

“Homelessness is a significant issue in Cuyahoga County. What steps would you take, or what policies would you recommend, to deal with it?”

Courtney Scheff

Homelessness is a big issue. There have been some improvements in the programs the county has provided. Lutheran Metropolitan Ministry has helped a lot, but we have to continue investing in programs like that.

There are children on the streets with their parents.

Part of what we need to do is make sure we are listening to the experts in this area. We need to provide education to help people get out of the homelessness spiral and mental-health services to help them get out of it.

A lot of people experiencing homelessness have mental-health issues. That is why it is so important that the mental-health crisis center, which is opening at the end of September, will provide people with a pathway to get the treatment they need.

It is an all-of-the-above approach. You cannot solve crime, homelessness or any other problem with just one approach. You have to do many different things.

Mike Gallagher

You have to find the money. Money is finite, and you have your programs.

Does the bottom line fit the programs? If it does not, because costs do go up, that is where you make your decisions.

You do not expand government. You try to do the best you can with what you were put there to do.

We were put there for safety, the services we provide to the homeless and our seniors, whom we have completely left on the doorstep for the 16 years I have been complaining.

What are we doing with our seniors?

We have 100,000 more seniors than Franklin County. We spend $19 million on programming. They spend $50 million a year on programming.

We have treated our senior citizens like crap, and it drives me crazy.

We are facing one of the biggest silver tsunamis in Ohio, here in Cuyahoga County. We are not going away.

Question 8: Communication with constituents

“Do you believe in email newsletters, being out campaigning door to door and providing a personal touch? It is important for us to know what is going on so that we know how to vote. How will you communicate with your constituents?”

Mike Gallagher

We put a good team together and a good plan together. I have captains in every city.

I personally just finished walking Berea, and I am in Olmsted Falls now.

When I first ran for City Council in Strongsville, I was going to lose. I was running against a handpicked candidate for the next mayor of Strongsville, so I ran as a Democrat in a Republican ward. I was told I was crazy.

I walked for 11 months. It got to the point where people said, “If you come back one more time, I am not going to vote for you.”

Somehow, I won. I knew I was going to lose, but somehow I won, and I moved on from there.

What I did immediately was go to everybody I knew was against me and say, “Let’s work together.”

I did the same thing when I first ran for this position against one of the best candidates I have ever faced, Anne Marie Donegan, who is in the back and supports me.

She was tough, and she had what I considered the gold standard of endorsements from the unions. I was running against the unions.

I told the union guys that, if I won, my first call after the election would be to them. It was. We are friends today, and we will be friends forever.

I grew up in that Irish Catholic, union, Kennedy household.

Courtney Scheff

It is critical that our representatives keep residents informed.

One of the first things I will do when I am elected is start a monthly email newsletter so people know what Cuyahoga County Council is considering and have that information before it happens.

It is also important to keep up with what is happening in each community so people are aware of what is going on.

Right now, there is the Drake Road and Howe Road issue. Residents were blindsided by that.

When there is a big issue going on, even if you do not have a direct vote on County Council but it is tangentially related to the county, like this interchange is, you go to the nearby residents and make sure they are aware of it.

If they need help, you help them have a voice and stand up for themselves.

We also need to use social media to tell people about the different programs we have for seniors and others so people know what is available to them.

There are a lot of different ways to communicate. That is something I absolutely will bring to this district. It is something I have been doing on the ground, talking to residents door by door.

Question 9: Data centers

“Data centers are being built throughout the country. These buildings create jobs while also raising large utility costs for consumers. How would you balance the benefits and negatives of these projects?”

Courtney Scheff

Data centers have become a big issue.

As I walked Olmsted Falls and Olmsted Township, I heard about a lot of electrical issues. Is that directly related to data centers? I am not sure.

North Royalton recently had an entire neighborhood lose power. Electrical issues have become a big deal across this district and, I am sure, across the country.

Data centers have other risks as well, including risks to the environment. They have been built without any guardrails around them.

I am proud that the county has put out a document to help municipalities know what to look for when data centers are proposed.

It suggested, I believe, a six-month or one-year moratorium so municipalities could put the zoning codes and policies they want in place.

If data centers are coming in, they should pay for the electrical upgrades. They should make sure there are environmental protections and that they are a benefit to the community, not a drawback.

Mike Gallagher

It is a local issue, so ultimately you are going to have control. The elected officials you elect will have control over what they are going to do with that.

Senator Moreno has a bill in Washington where there is a 100 percent clawback for any community that is harmed if there are cost overruns.

The new centers, even though they are bigger, more active and obviously pulling more power, have to have their own in-house power.

The water used for cooling in the old facilities was not recycled. It is now a closed system, like your radiator.

The technology is getting better and better. They are here to stay. That is progress, as they call it, but local communities will have a say. Ultimately, you are going to decide whether you want that.

The county has a data center on Euclid Avenue. Nobody knows that. The City of Berea probably uses the data center to store its information.

It is a necessary evil, but you are going to have control through your elected officials.

Question 10: Government regulation of artificial intelligence

“Would you support government intervention to slow the growth of AI?”

Mike Gallagher

I think anytime government raises its ugly head and gets involved in business, it is usually not a good thing.

I am not schooled enough to make a decision like that right now.

It seems to me that it is us versus China. I think it is us versus the rest of the world.

I have been told by some of my friends who are AI experts that this is going to have a very interesting outcome if it goes wrong, and it could go wrong.

The government should make the rules, but always be scared when the people providing these services go to Washington and want to help write the rules.

If that is what happens, everybody in this room is going to get jacked.

I think the government has a role regarding power, where these facilities can go and what they can use. The 100 percent clawback from Senator Moreno is a brilliant strategy if it were to pass.

Courtney Scheff

I watched Terminator growing up, so I am definitely concerned about AI.

As far as what the county can actually do, the county cannot make a lot of laws that necessarily cover this, but we can make sure that, at the county level, we are responsible with AI.

To the extent that AI is proposed for use at the county level, we need to be really careful.

I know a lot of you have probably watched some of the AI videos online, or you have used AI to research something, and it is just completely wrong.

It causes people to become confused and believe things that are not true.

At the county level, we need to slow down our use of AI and the technologies we use. That is the biggest role I think we can play.

As a council, if there is a proposal we think would be good, we could pass a resolution in support.

I do think we need to slow down, and the federal government needs to take the lead in making sure that happens.

Question 11: Flock cameras and privacy

“Flock cameras have proven controversial. Supporters claim a direct reduction in crime. Detractors claim they are an invasion of privacy. Where do you stand, and what policy do you plan to enact regarding Flock?”

Courtney Scheff

I have seen firsthand that Flock and ALPR cameras do help solve crimes. They do help, but I have also seen that they can be severely abused.

The county has a contract, not with Flock, but with another ALPR provider, that is coming up next year.

We need an attorney on County Council who can make sure the right questions are asked, that the contract is airtight and that there are guardrails to prevent abuse to the greatest extent possible.

We need to make sure we are not becoming a surveillance state right here in Cuyahoga County on the Cuyahoga County taxpayers’ dime.

I think you want an attorney in that seat to serve as a backstop.

I trust our attorneys in the law department and Prosecutor’s Office, but I do not think it hurts to have one more set of eyes on County Council before any contract is approved.

Mike Gallagher

Again, it is a local issue. Local elected officials will make that decision.

The program we have involves mobile cameras. Those are requested throughout the county by various cities for different events.

East Cleveland had a big event last year that went south. The sheriff went out there and put cameras up so that, if something happened, there would be a recording of the people doing it.

It is a double-edged sword. It is very difficult.

We have rights here, and Flock cameras can be misused like anything else.

With the police LEADS system, you sometimes have a rogue cop looking up a girlfriend, an ex-wife or something like that. That is totally irresponsible.

You have to put guardrails in place with real consequences if the technology is misused.

Question 12: Immigrants and refugees

“Cuyahoga County hosts large numbers of immigrants and refugees. With a continuing debate around immigration, what role do you feel county government should play?”

Mike Gallagher

That is another one where we read in The Plain Dealer that the executive opened a Welcome Center. That was interesting, and I asked questions because Catholic Charities came in and wanted money to help people.

My question on the council floor was, “Are you serving any illegal aliens?”

There was a long pause, and the woman finally said, “No, we are not.”

Just three weeks ago, the executive announced at one of our meetings that, indeed, we are serving illegal aliens.

I have enough people in the inner-ring suburbs and Cleveland who need money and services.

All four of my grandparents were from another country, and I wish we had something like that.

I think we need to tighten that up and help the people who are here and who have gone through the process legally.

We need them. We are the melting pot of the world, and we want to continue that correctly, not with open borders.

Courtney Scheff

The only growth Cuyahoga County has had recently has come from the immigrant population.

We should be welcoming immigrants. That is actually something that can help our tax base.

Our sales tax has not increased as much as it has in some other counties recently. I do not know that we know the cause of that yet, but it is quite possible that it is because we have fewer immigrants coming into this country legally because of the policies from the top.

If we want Cuyahoga County to grow and we want our tax base to grow, we should be a welcoming county.

That is one of the best things we can do to grow here, improve our economy and move forward together as a county and as generous and good people.

I support the Welcome Center, and I think it is important that we welcome immigrants into our community, just as we have for hundreds of years.

Question 13: Inflation and the rising cost of living

“What concrete steps would you take on council to address inflation and rising everyday costs, like groceries, housing and utilities? What policies would you enact, and how might you direct your own fiscal operations to help the economy grow out of this current situation and support residents who are at risk?”

Courtney Scheff

There was a lot in that question.

Inflation is hurting everybody, and it is hurting the people who rely on services the most.

We need to make sure we are keeping people on programs like Medicaid and SNAP, which help keep their costs down.

SNAP also helps grocers keep their costs down. When people stop spending as much at the grocery store, grocers sometimes raise their prices. It is a vicious cycle.

I believe we need more benefit specialists. That is one of the things I think should be prioritized over other programs, making sure we have benefit specialists who can help people get on Medicaid and SNAP.

There are other programs, like the new mental-health crisis center, that operate on a sliding scale so people can access the mental-health services they need.

These social services help lower costs for those at the bottom, which ultimately helps those at the top as well.

Mike Gallagher

The problems we have are the problems you have. Money is tight, but we have an obligation to certain individuals in this county.

Through your generosity, we have more than $300 million a year from our HHS levies. Again, they are asking for more and blaming inflation, and inflation is real. We all feel it.

The reality is that this county needs to go back to our core, necessary responsibilities and become kings of that world. We need to do a great job and stop spreading the peanut butter around to make everybody feel happy while no one gets the services they need.

The crisis center that Mr. Ronayne started is a great idea, but he killed the only psychiatric hospital emergency room that we put $7 million into, took that money and put it over there.

He funded the first three years through the state, with no funding for the final seven years. There is a $70 million hole.

That is not the way to run things.

Question 14: Preventing further cost increases on the county jail

“What can be done, specifically, about the over-budget jail? Or are we simply over budget?”

Mike Gallagher

Oh, my God.

I was the first one on the job before 2015. Then we put the committee together, and thank God Armond Budish saw the need and moved forward.

Politics got involved.

We had a $500 million jail. It is now $1 billion, and that is all delay. That is delay not by the council, but by our partners and the administrations that did not take it seriously.

They knew it.

If you go to my website and look at October 2022, the council pulled all the funding out of the plan we had on the table because both candidates for executive had a better idea.

We were handing them $1.4 billion for two buildings. One building is now $1 billion, and the other one is going to be $1 billion.

If that is a good idea and a better plan, God bless you. Do not vote for me.

It is insanity, but delay will kill us.

Courtney Scheff

The votes have been taken.

That was a nice synopsis of some history, but the question is specifically about what should be done to make sure it does not go over budget.

That will require the continued oversight of County Council.

Importantly, the guaranteed maximum price is set, and the bonds have been issued. We need to continue the project and not have delays because delay is what will make it cost more.

We also need to look to the future. We want to make sure that jail is not full because that will save us money.

That takes us back to the mental-health crisis center, which can serve up to 1,000 people a month. It can fold in the diversion center, which addresses some of the duplication we talked about.

The new jail will have a behavioral-health center.

These are the things you do to prevent crimes so people do not end up in jail, which ultimately saves us money.

Like I said before, this is an all-of-the-above approach. Those are the types of investments that can save us money over the long term.

Question 15: Browns stadium funding and corporate influence

“The Browns stadium project funds from Ohio were frozen at the end of last year amid allegations of corruption in the appropriations process, the current lawsuit and the FirstEnergy scandal. What efforts should be taken to hold lawmakers accountable regarding their relationships with corporations and the appropriation of funds?”

Courtney Scheff

I am trying to understand the question. The state is the one that gave the $600 million. It was not the county, so the county could not hold the state officials accountable.

The moderator clarified that the submitted question appeared to assume that the county had a relationship with the Browns.

Mike Gallagher

None at all.

Courtney Scheff

There is a portion of the current sin tax that goes to the Browns. If the question is really about stadium funding, I could answer that generally.

The moderator withdrew the question and moved to the next topic.

Question 16: Infrastructure and local decision-making

“What are you prepared to do? What plans do you have to ensure that the infrastructure in Cuyahoga County keeps pace with development and respects local decision-making?”

Courtney Scheff

This has been a problem throughout the district. The infrastructure is not keeping pace with development.

We have issues in Olmsted Falls and Olmsted Township where new developments are going in, but the roads are not wide enough and the sewers are not prepared.

It is important that we have partnerships with regional partners to make sure help is available to cities and that they are planning properly.

There is the unified zoning code that municipalities can become a part of.

I want to make sure we are communicating with our municipal partners about using that unified code and making the County Planning Commission available to them.

Ultimately, this is a local issue. They have to plan better, but the county has a planning commission and unified codes to help them do that.

That is something I hope municipalities take advantage of as they grow.

Mike Gallagher

One of the things I think the county does very well is handling roads and bridges, which are very expensive projects.

We have a good team. We have a very good team, actually.

Their connection and cooperation with the various cities is important. As Ms. Scheff mentioned, the Howe Road issue in Strongsville has become a big issue.

The county has no say in that, but we do have a seat at the table to listen and find out whether we can help.

We do a good job with that. Those are your tax dollars from the gas tax. We are pretty flush in that area, but we never have enough, like anything else.

We have to prioritize the worst bridges and roads. Not everybody agrees with that, but you have to rely on your experts and engineers to make that call.

I have not had many problems with it in 16 years. We have done a pretty good job.

Question 17: Blight and historic preservation

“Blight is a growing problem in a number of areas in the county. At the same time, numerous historic buildings have been demolished amid public opposition. How do you balance the need to reduce blight while preserving the character of communities? If you have examples, that would be helpful.”

Mike Gallagher

When Ed FitzGerald came in, he created a $50 million program to get rid of blighted properties, which was actually a great idea.

We started asking where the money was going to come from. Immediately, all the cities, the usual suspects, had their hands out.

We did a pretty good job with that, knocking down abandoned homes, especially around MetroHealth. That led MetroHealth to build housing for its employees. It was a win-win situation.

We do not have enough money to do what is necessary.

The $50 million came and went. I know the cities that used it were very appreciative, but this is a huge problem, and it goes directly to crime.

You have rapes and everything else happening in these abandoned homes in questionable neighborhoods.

We need to do a better job, but we have to come to you for the money.

Courtney Scheff

The Cuyahoga Land Bank has done a really good job of getting rid of some blighted properties.

The county has to continue seeking grants and working with our federal and state representatives to continue that type of program.

When municipalities work with the county and the state, that is where you can get a lot of these jobs done.

One of the other things we can do is keep our current communities from becoming blighted.

Programs like the Downtown Cleveland Improvement District help clean up downtown and keep it a place people are willing to visit.

You have to do both prevention and the cure. We need to keep working on both.

Question 18: Cooperation between municipalities

“There has been a lot of talk tonight about decisions made by different cities and different governing bodies. Do you have a vision for intermunicipal cooperation going forward? Do we need to do a better job, and can we do a better job?”

Courtney Scheff

It is going to be up to the municipalities what they want to do, but I think it is important that they have things like joint economic development districts.

North Olmsted recently did one with the township, I believe.

Those are really beneficial. Seeing communities work together is something the county can encourage, but it is ultimately up to the municipalities, with local control, to work together to make our communities better places to live and more efficient.

There has always been discussion about Olmsted Falls and Olmsted Township possibly becoming one, but it looks like there are too many different interests to achieve that at the moment.

Anything they can do to share services, and they already share a lot of services, is very helpful and helps keep their local costs down.

From the county’s perspective, I think it is more of an encouragement role.

Mike Gallagher

One of the things we do that is really a success is cleaning the sewers.

It may not sound like a big deal, but the county will come in at cost, so nobody loses money, and clean your sewers.

In Strongsville, where I am from, we bought our own machines. Those machines are out with crews 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year, cleaning the sewers.

We went from flooding every other day when there was a sprinkle to very little flooding.

You have to incrementally attack the problems.

The county started a program for a building department. I have never had my phone ring so quickly. All my partners in the district I represent said, “Absolutely not.”

I do not know what that was meant for.

There will be communities that need that, and they will pay what they can pay for it without, hopefully, anybody losing money.

Every attempt we make is a positive attempt to get people to share services.

Question 19: Putting people above party

“As a candidate for County Council, can you talk about how you will put people above party?”

Mike Gallagher

That has been my history.

I was a Democrat for 40 years and had to leave because I did not want to go to federal prison, which one of my colleagues did.

I went to the Republican Party, and I do not think the arms have exactly been opened up, to be honest with you.

I like running on my own.

I do not take money from Democratic clubs or Republican clubs. In 16 years, I have not taken a nickel from the Republican Party, and I have been a Republican the whole time.

When I get elected, I represent everybody.

I have never looked at the campaign-finance reports of a candidate who ran against me. It is not my business. I do not care.

If you have a problem, you call Gallagher, and you know it is going to get fixed.

That is why I have mayors, councilpeople and everybody else who knows me supporting me. All they say is, “He responds.”

Courtney Scheff

I have spent my life serving others.

I put on the uniform for this country. I did not ask my fellow sailors which political party they belonged to.

When I was in the Cuyahoga County Prosecutor’s Office and we received dozens of cases a week, I did not look to see whether the alleged perpetrator or alleged victim was a Democrat or Republican.

When I help people with their taxes through AARP, I have no idea whether they are Democrats or Republicans.

Service is about helping people regardless of what they believe, what religion they are or who they are. That is something I have always put first in my life.

Especially as a mom, I do not know what my kids are going to turn out to be, but I am going to love them anyway.

I am the Democratic nominee. I am a Democrat, and I am proud of that, but I will answer anybody’s questions.

I have bipartisan support from elected officials and regular residents. I am proud of that.

I will help everybody.

Closing Statements

Courtney Scheff

Thank you, everybody, for coming tonight. I think it is really important that we have these forums so you can listen to both candidates.

Five years ago, I got involved in local politics because I saw our system breaking down. The old guard was more focused on power and partisan politics than on serving residents.

People were left out of decisions that affected them while political power grabs took the place of public service.

I believed our city deserved better, and instead of complaining about it, I did something about it.

I built and led a bipartisan movement of ordinary residents to change the leadership of North Royalton.

I organized, recruited, built coalitions, talked to people and worked to elect better people and better public servants to local office. It worked.

Today, for the first time in years, people actually know what is going on in our city. For the first time in years, they have a voice.

My favorite example is a large development project that was going to be built. In years past, it would have sailed through, and residents would have woken up with a three-story building behind their yards.

Our new councilpeople made sure residents were aware. When the residents stood up, the councilpeople stood with them, and they stopped that project.

That is the kind of county councilwoman I am going to be.

I will communicate. I will listen, and I will make sure you know what is happening before it happens.

In this federal and state climate, essential services and good budgeting are not going to materialize by pounding your fist and blaming somebody else.

Tough choices have to be made by us as elected officials. That is our responsibility.

That is what public service is about. It is about serving the people, not yourself and not the powerful, but the people.

Government should work for residents, not happen to them.

That is what this whole night has been about: service, accountability and delivering results.

I believe I am the change candidate in November. I hope you will vote for change you can trust. My background shows you can trust me.

Thank you again for tonight.

Mike Gallagher

Thank you, Courtney, and thanks to everybody for coming out tonight.

These are important positions. I think we need to get back to stopping this Democrat and Republican, red and blue stuff. It is not helpful.

I have never done that, and I never will. I have been on both sides.

The county does the best it can. At least, we used to do the best we could. We are struggling right now.

I personally think it is self-inflicted, and I will stand on that to my grave.

We can turn it around. We can change it.

It starts when you do not go to the voters for their permission to take money and spend it on programs that are new, not old and necessary.

That is a problem.

I am very vocal for the taxpayers, and I will fight for you.

I have fought for 47 years in public office. I could have probably gone out and made a lot more money, but I have been blessed by being in the position I have been in.

The people I have met and the people I have served, including the little people who needed their garbage taken out, have made it worthwhile.

She is right. We start locally, and we go to the county and try to make the county work locally.

It is very important that we listen to you at the ballot box and not go behind your back to take $6 billion of your money to cover our spending habits.

It is unacceptable.

I will never stand for that. I will fight to the death for the taxpayers of Cuyahoga County.

I already have, and I am getting hammered for it. You know what? I would not have it any other way.

You want a fighter, you have one.

Thanks for coming out.

The past few years have exposed problems stretching from ownership and management to the decisions made on the field. Yet Browns fans continue filling the stadium, buying merchandise, packing the parking lots and convincing themselves that this year might be different.

To me, the Cleveland Browns are a mirror of politics.

Both show how people tolerate decisions that are not good for them because they hope something better is coming, stop paying attention or never impose consequences on the people making those decisions.

The Most Loyal Fans Keep Getting the Worst Product

The Browns are a notoriously unsuccessful franchise, but they continue spending enormous amounts of money. One published payroll estimate placed Cleveland first in the NFL for 2026, at approximately $361 million.

The team’s season tickets remain sold out. Fans continue tailgating, buying gear and building their Sundays around a franchise that has given them very little in return.

At some point, it starts looking like Stockholm syndrome. Fans get punched in the face, disrespected, lied to and gouged for money. Then they come back the following week hoping the next game will be different. That's how we got our cities motto, "there's always next year.”

The organization can make terrible decisions because it knows most of the fan base is not going anywhere. The anger is real, but it rarely becomes a consequence. People complain, call the radio shows and argue online. Then they buy another jersey and tune in Sunday.

That is where the political comparison begins.

The Deshaun Watson Decision Told Us Everything

In 2022, the Browns traded three first-round draft picks and additional draft capital for Deshaun Watson. They then gave him a five-year, $230 million contract that was fully guaranteed.

The allegations surrounding Watson were already public. More than 20 women had accused him of sexual misconduct connected to massage appointments. Grand juries declined to indict him, but the civil allegations remained. The Browns signed him anyway. Sounds like a congressman I know.

The NFL eventually suspended Watson for 11 games and fined him $5 million after its investigation. Most of the organization and fan base eventually closed the book, shrugged and moved forward. Plenty of people essentially argued that whatever happened in Watson’s personal life would become secondary if he won football games.

Then he did not win football games.

Watson struggled with performance and repeated injuries. He played only 19 regular-season games for Cleveland between 2022 and 2024 before multiple Achilles surgeries kept him out during 2025. Even Browns co-owner Jimmy Haslam eventually called the trade a “big swing and miss.”

Yet Cleveland selected Watson as its starting quarterback again in 2026. In the season opener, the Browns lost 34–10 to Jacksonville. Cleveland fell behind 31–0 before scoring its only touchdown late in the game.

Watson had described boos from Browns fans during the preseason as “personal” and “disrespectful” all while he was wearing $75,000 earrings, a Louis Vuitton shirt and a Richard Mille watch, all in all worth nearly $350,000 by my layman estimates.

A highly paid quarterback criticizing the fans who are angry about the product they have been given. As though we had no right to be pissed. Making it seem HE was the victim.

Now the Browns Want a $2.6 Billion Stadium

The organization is also moving forward with a new domed stadium and surrounding development in Brook Park.

The project was originally described as costing approximately $2.4 billion. The Browns now place the cost at roughly $2.6 billion. The Haslam family says it increased its private share to 67.5 percent, but Ohio still approved $600 million in state support.

That public financing became the subject of litigation because the state planned to use money from Ohio’s unclaimed-funds system. A judge temporarily blocked the transfer while the lawsuit moved forward.

The Browns want more than a football stadium. The Brook Park development would include parking, restaurants, retail, hotels and other property surrounding the dome. Instead of fans spending money throughout downtown Cleveland, the organization would control far more of the economic activity attached to a game or event.

This is an expensive facility for a franchise with a poor record, years of questionable decisions and one of the most disastrous quarterback contracts in NFL history.

People complained. Lawsuits were filed. The people raised objections. Concessions were made. But the project kept moving.

That also sounds familiar.

We Keep Rewarding the Behavior We Claim to Hate

In politics, voters complain about property taxes, wasteful spending, inaccessible officials and money flowing toward specialized projects. Candidates make promises during campaigns, enter office and face few consequences when those promises disappear.

Incumbents can remain in office for years without debating their opponents or holding meaningful town halls. Spending decisions generate a few angry posts or messages. Then election season arrives, and many voters support the same people again.

The Browns operate under a similar arrangement. Fans blame ownership, coaches and management, but continue supplying the organization with attention and money.

Where is our/your responsibility?

We keep buying tickets. We keep purchasing merchandise. We keep watching the games and consuming months of sports coverage. We rarely boycott. We do not consistently pressure our representatives over public stadium financing. We complain about owners extracting money from the region while politicians compete to keep those owners happy.

The same pattern appears in government. People hope the next election will finally change everything, just as Browns fans hope the next season will finally be different.

Hope replaces consequences.

Accountability requires more than anger. It requires changing what we reward.

The Browns can continue making terrible decisions because the fans keep returning.

Political candidates and officials ignore debates, avoid town halls, overspend and break campaign promises, and voters continue returning them to office. Shit, they can have alleged domestic violence charges and still get elected.

We have a role in maintaining the system.

Otherwise, we will keep receiving the same shit sandwich: a horrible product, another angry Sunday and highly paid people dressed in luxury telling us we are disrespectful for expecting better.

Stay Angry.

Amy Acton has decided not to debate Vivek Ramaswamy. Strategically, I understand that decision. Politically, it may even be the smart move.

But this is bigger than what helps Amy Acton win an election.

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Modern political debates are broken. They reward shamelessness, encourage lying and turn serious questions about governing into a competition for viral clips. But the answer to a broken debate system cannot be to eliminate debates and allow candidates to communicate entirely through advertisements, scripted interviews and their own social-media bubbles.

Acton does not owe Ramaswamy a debate.

She owes one to the people of Ohio.

The Acton Campaign Has a Legitimate Argument

Acton’s campaign manager, Phil Stein, said her focus is “on talking with Ohioans, not platforming a scam artist” who has spread false and disgusting claims about Acton and her family.

That is not an unreasonable concern.

According to the campaign, Ramaswamy and his billionaire supporters have spent more than $50 million on inaccurate attack advertisements, including AI-generated material depicting Acton as having a substance-abuse problem and attacks involving the sexual abuse she suffered as a child.

I understand why Acton does not want to stand on a stage and pretend this is a normal political disagreement between two candidates operating in good faith. If one candidate believes the other is deliberately spreading lies, rewarding that behavior with a statewide television audience feels like walking directly into a trap.

(The Rooster) made that argument in an op-ed defending Acton’s decision saying, “debates,” which only favor the most shameless liar on the stage in their current form:

I agree.

However, let’s look the phrase “in their current form”

The format is broken. The public’s right to see candidates challenged in real time is not.

The Rooster

Conman reduced to shrieking “debate me!!!” like the shrill nerd he is

The notorious conman’s latest campaign tactic: Shrieking about debates in an era that no longer requires the platforming of shameless liars…

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25 days ago · 8 likes · 1 comment · D.J. Byrnes

Debates Have Become Auditions for Social Media

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Political debates are no longer designed primarily to help voters understand how candidates would govern. They are designed to manufacture moments.

Candidates are incentivized to say something outrageous, interrupt their opponent or deliver a rehearsed insult that can be cut into a 20-second TikTok, Instagram Reel or YouTube Short. The campaign posts the clip, partisan accounts repeat it and supporters share it as proof that their candidate “destroyed” or “owned” the other side.

Recent reporting from The Atlantic shows how far this political-content economy has gone. The publication documented an operation called Elephant Clipping, run through a company in Latvia, that reportedly paid contractors, many apparently outside the United States, to produce short videos promoting Republicans.

Participants were told they could use artificial intelligence to generate ideas even if they knew nothing about American politics. The operation reportedly had a $300,000 monthly budget and paid clippers based on the number of views their videos received. The clips were then posted through accounts intended to resemble ordinary Americans expressing spontaneous political opinions.

This is the environment in which a modern debate operates. Candidates are not only speaking to the people watching the full event. They are supplying raw footage to campaigns, political organizations, paid clippers and partisan influencers who will strip each moment of context and feed it into an algorithm.

That explains why Acton’s campaign does not want to give Ramaswamy two hours of material.

It does not explain why Ohioans should accept having no debate at all.

Democrats Cannot Change the Principle When It Benefits Them

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The Ohio Democratic Party made its position on debates very clear when Mike DeWine declined to debate Nan Whaley in 2022.

At the time, the party argued that refusing to debate was part of a “disturbing trend” among both Democrats and Republicans. It cited polling showing that 84 percent of likely Ohio voters wanted candidates for the state’s highest offices to debate one another.

The party said:

“Debates are the equivalent of a job interview for candidates running for office.”

It argued that debates allow voters to see how candidates think on their feet, respond to criticism and answer difficult questions. It also said candidates should defend their records and positions regardless of their opponent or the forum.

I agree with that.

But if Democrats believed Mike DeWine owed voters a debate, then Amy Acton owes voters one too.

The principle cannot be that debates are essential when a Republican refuses and obsolete when a Democrat refuses. Either candidates have an obligation to face one another in public, or they do not.

It is true that the candidate demanding a debate is often the candidate who thinks he needs it. DeWine had little political reason to help Whaley in 2022. Ramaswamy now believes debating Acton would benefit him.

That is campaign strategy. It should not determine whether Ohioans get to see the people seeking control of their state government answer questions in the same room.

This Problem Goes Far Beyond Amy Acton

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Candidates and elected officials increasingly behave as though they do not owe the public unscripted access.

Traditional town halls are disappearing. Some elected officials hold controlled telephone events instead, where questions can be screened and the conversation can be managed.

Candidates refuse interviews with news organizations they consider biased. Republicans avoid cleveland.com and The Plain Dealer.

Democrats object to other editorial boards.

Candidates and political parties dismiss the League of Women Voters, newspapers and other civic organizations whenever they believe the institution will not give them favorable treatment.

The Cuyahoga County Democratic Party has also opposed having judicial candidates participate in Judge4Yourself, arguing that the process is biased.

Whatever anyone thinks about that criticism, the result is the same: voters lose another opportunity to see candidates questioned and compared.

Every politician now has a reason to avoid scrutiny. The newspaper is biased. The moderator is unfair. The audience is hostile. The opponent is a liar. The organization cannot be trusted.

If every candidate gets to reject every forum they dislike, public accountability disappears. What replaces it?

Campaign advertisements. Friendly podcasts. Edited videos. Fundraising emails. Telephone town halls with screened questions. Ideologically aligned “independent” media. Social-media feeds designed to show supporters exactly what they already believe.

We are allowing candidates to build private political realities and invite voters into them. Nobody has to leave their own camp, encounter an opposing argument or answer an unexpected question.

Fix the Debate Instead of Killing It

The traditional debate format needs to change.

First, debates should include real-time fact-checking. We have the technology to do it. A nonpartisan team could review claims as candidates make them and display the results on screen. Campaigns could be permitted to submit their own sources or fact-checking systems before the debate, but the process and standards would have to be public.

If candidates distrust one artificial-intelligence system, let each campaign bring its own approved research agent. Use several systems, human researchers and primary documents. When the evidence repeatedly points to the same answer, display it.

Second, moderators need control of the microphones. If a candidate repeatedly interrupts, talks over an opponent or refuses to follow the rules, turn off the microphone. Candidates should not be permitted to bully moderators simply because everyone is afraid of appearing biased.

Third, candidates should receive the topics beforehand.

I do not care if they know the general questions in advance. This is not a high-school quiz. I want candidates to give complete, informed answers about taxes, education, housing, abortion, healthcare, energy and the state budget.

Giving them time to prepare would produce better answers and make dishonesty less defensible. If you know the topic and still arrive with false information, that tells voters something important.

Fourth, questions should be crowdsourced from Ohioans. Let voters submit and rank questions. Require the candidates to address the issues people are actually discussing rather than whatever produces the highest television ratings.

Finally, there must be follow-up questions. Candidates should not be allowed to ignore what was asked, repeat a campaign slogan and wait for the clock to expire. If the answer does not address the question, the moderator should say so and ask it again.

The debate should be a job interview, just as the Ohio Democratic Party once argued. It should not be professional wrestling with lecterns.

Acton’s Strategy Makes Sense. Her Decision Is Still Wrong.

I agree with Acton’s campaign that Ramaswamy would try to turn a debate into a collection of viral moments. I agree with The Rooster that the current format rewards shameless behavior. I also believe declining the debate may be the safer campaign strategy for Acton.

But I still disagree with her decision.

We should not applaud candidates for retreating further into controlled media environments. We should demand a better forum and then demand that both candidates participate in it.

Social media already allows politicians to tell us only what they want us to hear. Algorithms keep voters inside partisan bubbles. Campaigns and outside groups can manufacture clips, manufacture outrage and even manufacture the appearance of grassroots support.

A real debate is one of the few opportunities to make both candidates enter the same room, answer the same questions and confront ideas they cannot completely control.

The goal should not be to protect Amy Acton from Vivek Ramaswamy.

It also should not give Ramaswamy another stage for political theater either.

Amy Acton should debate Vivek Ramaswamy.

But she/we/Ohioans should demand a format with enforceable rules, controlled microphones, voter-submitted questions, meaningful follow-ups and real-time fact-checking.

Do not cancel the debate. Fix the damn debate.

Stay Angry.

When you hear that Cuyahoga County is building a new jail, and then you hear the price started around $500 million before ballooning to nearly $900 million, you have to ask yourself a basic question:

Does everything cost a billion dollars now?

No. Everything does not cost a billion dollars.

This project is absolutely, unequivocally, extremely fucking expensive.

The county currently lists a $889 million program budget for its planned 1,886-bed Central Services Campus in Garfield Heights. That comes to approximately:

$471,000 per bed

Bs Jail Plans

2.47MB ∙ PDF file

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That is roughly the cost of building a new, very nice, three- or four-bedroom suburban house for every bed inside this facility.

And the jail is not the end of the spending. Cuyahoga County has also approved a separate agreement that could provide up to $200 million for renovations and improvements to the existing courthouse complex.

Put the two together, and the county is already discussing more than $1.08 billion in justice-system construction, before considering decades of financing costs.

The jail estimate itself has risen from approximately $550 million in 2020 estimates, to at least $700 million in 2022, and now nearly $900 million. The county has not published a final guaranteed maximum construction price, so anyone claiming the cost cannot rise again is making a promise they cannot guarantee.

My question is simple:

Where the hell is all this money going?

First, Let’s Compare It With Other American Jails

Cuyahoga County plans to spend $889 million for 1,886 beds, or approximately $471,000 per bed. Compare that with what other counties and cities have built, and the price becomes almost impossible to justify.

Franklin County’s completed corrections center contains approximately 1,285 rated beds and cost about $360 million, or roughly $280,000 per bed. It is a modern facility with medical care, mental-health treatment, addiction services, behavioral programming, direct supervision, reentry support and substantial natural light.

Cuyahoga County is proposing many of those same services while spending approximately $191,000 more per bed. That makes Cuyahoga’s project about 68 percent more expensive per bed than Franklin County’s.

The Los Angeles Twin Towers complex opened in 1997 with approximately 4,100 beds and originally cost $373 million. Adjusted to 2026 construction costs, the entire project would cost roughly $900 million to $950 million, or between $220,000 and $230,000 per bed.

That means Cuyahoga County is spending more than twice as much per bed as the inflation-adjusted cost of the Los Angeles Twin Towers complex.

Coyote Ridge in Washington provides another direct comparison. The 564,000-square-foot campus added 2,048 beds and included medical, dental, mental-health, educational, vocational, recreational and industrial facilities. Adjusted to 2026 construction costs, the project would cost approximately $370 million to $390 million, or between $180,000 and $190,000 per bed.

Cuyahoga County is spending approximately two and a half times as much per bed as Coyote Ridge.

The numbers are not close:

• Cuyahoga County: $471,000 per bed

• Franklin County: $280,000 per bed

• Los Angeles Twin Towers: $220,000 to $230,000 per bed

• Coyote Ridge: $180,000 to $190,000 per bed

Cuyahoga County’s nearly half-million-dollar cost per bed is not the unavoidable price of building a modern jail.

It is an extraordinarily expensive project that county officials have failed to justify.

How Does Cuyahoga Compare Internationally?

Germany’s planned JVA Cologne replacement is the only facility in this comparison that costs more per bed than Cuyahoga County. Every other major project costs substantially less.

Cuyahoga is approximately 26 percent more expensive per bed than HMP Millsike, 62 percent more expensive than France’s Crisenoy prison, 134 percent more expensive than HMP Five Wells and 155 percent more expensive than Japan’s Shimane Asahi Rehabilitation Program Center.

The comparison with HMP Five Wells is especially damning. Five Wells opened in the United Kingdom in 2022, so this is not an outdated facility built under completely different financial conditions. It contains housing blocks, healthcare, workshops, education, rehabilitation programs and modern security systems.

Five Wells provides approximately 41 square meters of space per prisoner. Cuyahoga County plans approximately 44 square meters per bed. The facilities provide nearly the same amount of physical space per person, but Five Wells cost approximately $201,000 per bed, compared with $471,000 in Cuyahoga County.

Cuyahoga is spending more than twice as much per bed without providing twice as much space.

France’s planned Crisenoy prison makes the cost even harder to defend. Crisenoy will contain approximately 1,000 places, multiple custody classifications, enhanced security and medical-psychological services. It is expected to cost approximately $290,000 per bed.

Crisenoy provides roughly 50 square meters per prisoner, compared with Cuyahoga’s 44 square meters. France is building a facility with more space per person, enhanced security and specialized medical services while spending approximately $181,000 less per bed.

Japan’s Shimane Asahi Rehabilitation Program Center holds 2,000 people and includes medical care, education, vocational training and extensive rehabilitation programming. After adjusting its construction cost for inflation, the facility comes to approximately $185,000 per bed.

Cuyahoga County is spending more than two and a half times as much per bed.

The projects in China, the Philippines and Brazil were built under different wage, regulatory, construction environments, human rights and dignity environments, but the size of the difference is still staggering.

Cuyahoga’s cost per bed is more than 12 times the Pudong detention complex, more than 33 times the Baguio City Jail and nearly 38 times the Ribeirão do Pinhal prison.

The international comparison is clear. Cuyahoga County is not paying an ordinary price for a modern jail. It is paying one of the highest prices per bed in the developed world.

The county cannot explain away those differences by listing medical care, mental-health treatment and rehabilitation services. The other facilities provide those services too.

Cuyahoga County is simply spending far more and county officials do not know exactly why.

What Are We Actually Buying?

The county will respond that this is more than a jail.

Fine. Let’s look at what is included.

The proposed campus contains jail housing, single cells, four-bed cells, dormitory housing, restrictive housing and specialized behavioral-care units. It also includes a 26-bed infirmary, dental care, dialysis, diagnostic services, laboratory testing, a pharmacy, physical therapy and telemedicine.

There will be mental-health and substance-abuse services, central booking, reentry assistance, visitation, programming, video courtrooms, recreation, sheriff’s administration, staff facilities and professional-development areas.

Those are substantial features. Many are necessary.

People being held in a county jail deserve dignity, medical care, mental-health treatment and protection from abuse. Many are awaiting trial and have not been convicted of a crime. Humane treatment is not the part I object to.

What I object to is county leaders acting as if listing those services automatically explains an $889 million budget.

It does not.

One estimate was approximately $85.8 million for HVAC work alone, or almost $100 per square foot across the planned campus. WTAF!~

For comparison:

Cuyahoga County’s HVAC estimate is approximately $85.8 million for 872,000 square feet, or about $98 per square foot. The more facilities we compare it with, the harder that price becomes to explain.

Coyote Ridge’s reported mechanical package cost approximately $51 per square foot, while the Somerset County Jail mechanical contract cost about $50 per square foot. Cuyahoga’s estimate is nearly twice both correctional-facility comparisons.

The hospital comparison is even more revealing. The McKenzie County Hospital project had an $11 million mechanical contract for 132,380 square feet, or approximately $83 per square foot. That contract included HVAC, plumbing, medical gas and equipment. Cuyahoga’s HVAC estimate alone is approximately 18 percent higher per square foot than that broader hospital mechanical package.

Published 2026 commercial benchmarks put fully installed water-cooled chiller systems, commonly used in hospitals and laboratories, at approximately $32 to $58 per square foot. That range includes equipment, ductwork, piping, controls, startup and balancing. Cuyahoga’s $98 estimate is approximately 69 percent higher than the top of that range. Terrapin Construction Group

Large Amazon distribution and fulfillment facilities use commercial rooftop units, air-rotation systems and building-management controls. One documented Amazon distribution-center project used two 40,000-CFM air-rotation units, approximately 400 tons of cooling capacity and a comprehensive building-management system. A fully installed packaged rooftop HVAC system currently runs approximately $14 to $28 per square foot.

Even using the top of that range, Cuyahoga is spending approximately three and a half times as much per square foot as an Amazon-style fulfillment center. Compared with the lower end, Cuyahoga is spending about seven times as much.

A complete warehouse HVAC system generally costs approximately $6 to $18 per square foot, including equipment, ductwork, installation and basic controls. Cuyahoga’s estimate is between five and 16 times that warehouse range. AC Direct warehouse HVAC estimate

Cuyahoga County’s $98-per-square-foot estimate exceeds other jail projects, exceeds an actual hospital mechanical contract and towers over the cost of cooling a massive fulfillment center.

County officials need to explain exactly what taxpayers are receiving for $85.8 million.

This Is What Failed Oversight Looks Like

There has been no meaningful oversight of this project. Cuyahoga County allowed the estimated cost of its new jail to rise from around $500 million to nearly $900 million, and county leaders still cannot clearly explain why it costs approximately $471,000 per bed.

County Prosecutor Michael O’Malley asked the Ohio Auditor’s Public Integrity Unit to investigate whether county officials advanced the project and spent public money without obtaining approvals required under state law. When your own county prosecutor is asking the state auditor to investigate how money was spent and whether the project was legally approved, the oversight process has already failed.

County Council then extended a 0.25 percent sales tax for another 40 years to finance the project. The extension passed by a 6-5 vote without being placed before county voters.

Now taxpayers are expected to finance nearly $900 million for the jail while the county commits up to another $200 million to courthouse renovations. Together, these projects push the county’s justice-system construction commitments beyond $1 billion. I promise we will see them ballon to $1.5 - $2 billion.

This is fiscal irresponsibility and failed leadership. A project does not climb by hundreds of millions of dollars without people making decisions, approving contracts and spending public money. When those decisions produce one of the most expensive correctional facilities in the country, taxpayers have every right to ask whether this is incompetence, corruption or both.

County Council should stop authorizing money until an independent audit is completed.

The county must publish the guaranteed maximum price, every major contract and subcontract, the entire $85.8 million HVAC scope, every change order, every design revision and every bid comparison used to justify these costs.

“Modern jails are expensive” is not an answer. It is an excuse being used to avoid explaining where nearly $900 million is actually going.

This project is outrageously expensive, and the people approving it have failed to provide the oversight taxpayers deserve.

Not another dollar should be authorized until Cuyahoga County opens the books and shows the public exactly who is being paid, how much they are receiving and what taxpayers are getting in return.

Stay Angry.

Most of that discussion has focused on whether Wang disrupted the meeting, whether Phillips tried to intimidate her and which one was more responsible for the confrontation,

I watched the meeting and read the transcript. I do not know Wang and have never met her in person. I am not here to defend everything she has done at this meeting or others. The commission has documented a longer history of confrontations with her, and commissioners and staff have said they feel harassed and unsafe. I am not dismissing that.

But after reviewing what happened, I am also not sure about with the way Wang became the entire story while the government questions she raised were allowed to disappear.

That is becoming a familiar trick in local government. Officials do not have to answer an accusation if they can make the accuser the only subject anyone discusses.

What Happened at the Meeting

The meeting began with a transparency problem before Wang ever reached the microphone.

When the commission arrived at the portion of the agenda for approving meeting minutes, no minutes were available. The chair asked whether any had been generated. A staff member said they would check SharePoint. The chair then acknowledged that the commission probably had “a backlog of minutes.”

That is important because one of Wang’s first complaints was that minutes had not been published.

Under Ohio’s Open Meetings Act, meeting minutes must be promptly prepared, maintained and made available for public inspection. That does not automatically mean the commission intentionally violated the law. It does mean Wang’s complaint was based on a real and acknowledged problem.

When Wang began her public comment, Phillips interrupted her almost immediately. To the chair’s credit, he stopped her clock and instructed Phillips to let her finish.

Wang then raised questions about missing minutes, grants administered through the commission, public access to grant applications and participation in a surveillance-technology workgroup.

When her time expired, Wang continued addressing Phillips. The two exchanged taunts. Phillips asked whether she was an American citizen. Wang continued speaking, the confrontation escalated and officers stepped between them. The meeting was recessed for an hour and 15 minutes. Wang was eventually cited for disorderly conduct after refusing to leave during the recess.

There was disruption. Wang contributed to it. Phillips contributed to it. Only Wang was cited.

All of those things can be true.

The Questions Behind the Disruption

Wang’s delivery was confrontational, but the substance of her public comment included questions that can be checked.

The commission admitted it had a backlog of minutes.

Wang also said she could not obtain grant applications and related documents. Ohio’s Public Records Act allows any person to request public records. Wang does not need to be a commissioner, journalist or attorney to make that request.

That does not mean every line of every application must be released. Some information could fall under a legal exemption. But if the commission or city is withholding records, it should identify what it is withholding and the legal reason why.

Wang also questioned repeated grants to the Cleveland Clergy Coalition, which Phillips leads. Public records show that the coalition received a $45,000 commission grant in 2023. In the next published award matrix, the United Black Fund recommended another $35,604 award.

Repeat funding is not proof of wrongdoing. The commission’s own rules allow previous recipients to apply again.

But repeated public funding creates a legitimate public interest in seeing the applications, scoring criteria, contracts, payments and performance reports. The public should be able to determine what was promised, what was delivered and why another award was justified.

Those questions deserve answers even if Wang made them in the most aggravating way possible.

What Signal Cleveland Left Out

Signal Cleveland’s story contains useful reporting. It documents the commission’s complaints about Wang, previous confrontations, the city Law Department’s response, the special prosecutor and the disorderly-conduct citation. It also reports that both Wang and Phillips exchanged taunts and that Phillips questioned her citizenship.

But the article is overwhelmingly framed around the commission’s claim that Wang is preventing it from working.

It does not tell readers that the commission admitted it had a backlog of minutes immediately before Wang spoke.
It does not investigate whether her public-records requests were fulfilled or denied.
It does not examine the grants awarded to the Cleveland Clergy Coalition or ask whether the performance records are available.
It does not answer whether the surveillance workgroup is open to the public.

That omission changes the story.

Readers are left with a character study about Wang’s behavior instead of enough information to decide whether any of the claims underneath that behavior have merit.

I am not accusing Signal Cleveland of taking bribes or participating in a conspiracy, as some commenters did. There is no evidence for that. My criticism is simpler: Signal followed the conflict but did not follow the records and money behind it.

What People Said Under Signal’s Story

Facebook comments are not a scientific poll. They are self-selected, emotional and sometimes hostile. But they can still show where public skepticism is concentrated.

The overall sentiment underneath Signal Cleveland’s story leaned against the way the confrontation was handled and reported.

The largest group of commenters focused on Phillips. They questioned why he approached Wang, why he interrupted her and why his question about her citizenship was not treated more seriously. Many believed Signal’s framing minimized his role while placing the responsibility for the entire confrontation on Wang.

Another significant group focused on the unanswered financial and transparency questions. These commenters wanted more reporting about the grants, Phillips’s political relationships, the Flock surveillance debate and the commission’s own inability to produce records.

A smaller but noticeable group viewed Wang as a chronic disruptor whose conduct has prevented meetings from functioning. Their position was that officials had already tolerated too much and should have removed her sooner.

There was also a broader sentiment that the commission itself is dysfunctional. Several people argued that Wang is being used as a convenient scapegoat for an institution that struggled to complete its work even when she was not present.

The comments did not produce a clear defense of Wang’s behavior. What they showed was widespread confusion with making her behavior the entire story.

offered this perspective:

“Everything that happened here needs to be seen in the light of the original purpose of the Cleveland Police Commission and the ongoing efforts to keep it from fulfilling its mission. The CPC was established by Issue 24, which was an initiative put forward by the families of people who had been killed by the police, including Samaria Rice, the mother of Tamir Rice. The goal from the beginning was to have a body that could discipline or fire corrupt and abusive police officers, without being overruled by the Chief of Police or the Director of Public Safety. From the beginning, those of us who worked to get issue 24 passed knew that there would be massive effort buy people in positions of power to keep anyone from holding the police accountable.

There is a standard strategy for blocking government agencies from imposing unwanted regulation. First, you sabotage the operation of the body. Then you announce to the public that the body is dysfunctional and should be abolished.

A lot of what we’re seeing right now advances this agenda. The difficulty the commission has faced obtaining needed documents, the hiring or appointment of people who don’t seem committed to the cause of police accountability, and the disruption of public meetings, all create the impression that the work of the Commission is impossible, and should be given up. People who want to hold the police accountable should be working for a functional community police commission.”

Ardelia Holmes’s Argument Is Different

Ardelia Holmes made a more complicated argument than either defending or condemning Wang.

Holmes said she is no fan of Phillips. She believes the questions involving grant money, Phillips’s support for Flock cameras, his disbarment and his relationship with Mayor Justin Bibb deserve scrutiny. She also described Phillips’s size and posture toward Wang as frightening and intimidating.

But Holmes also argued that Wang’s tactics gave the commission an escape hatch.

The discussion should have been about the money, the missing documents and why certain organizations keep receiving public grants. Instead, Wang continued pointing, speaking and moving toward Phillips after her public comment, allowing the discussion to become entirely about her conduct.

Holmes put it bluntly: “You provided the out.”

If your goal is to force a public body to answer a specific question, your tactics have to keep that question in the center of the room. If your conduct allows officials to replace the question with a debate about you, you have made their job easier.

The discussion underneath Holmes’s post was more divided than the comments beneath Signal’s story. Many agreed that both participants were wrong and that Wang’s tactics repeatedly bury her legitimate points. Others believed Holmes was blaming someone who had been targeted and intimidated.

The conversation eventually turned into arguments about race, gender and how women of color are perceived in public spaces. Some of that discussion was thoughtful. Much of it deteriorated into personal attacks.

Phillips asking a Chinese American woman whether she was an American citizen was unacceptable. At the same time, criticism of Wang’s conduct cannot automatically be dismissed as an attack on her identity.

The standard should be conduct: Who interrupted? Who continued after being told to stop? Who escalated the confrontation? Who was removed or cited? Was the same standard applied to everyone?

Answer the Questions

The commission should not have to tolerate threats, harassment or behavior that prevents it from completing public business. It also should not be able to use Wang’s behavior as a substitute for answering her questions.

Publish the missing minutes.

Release the grant applications, scoring records, contracts, payments and performance reports to the extent required by law. If something is withheld, identify the specific legal exemption.

Explain who participates in the surveillance-technology workgroup and whether members of the public can join.

Apply the same conduct rules to commissioners, guests and members of the public.

Signal Cleveland should also follow up on what its first story left unresolved.
What records did Wang request?
What was provided?
How much has the Cleveland Clergy Coalition received across every grant cycle? What results did its programs produce?
What role did Phillips and his organization play in the Flock debate while receiving public and campaign money?

Maybe Wang is wrong about some or all of it. If so, the records can prove that.

Maybe the commission followed every required procedure. If so, it should be able to demonstrate that without hiding behind a disorderly-conduct citation.

And maybe Holmes is right that Wang’s tactics repeatedly help the people she is trying to expose.

That still does not relieve those people of the obligation to answer.

Stay Angry.

Here is another candidate comparison from The Angry Ohioans. The mission is simple: look at who is running, examine what they have done, explain the policies they are campaigning on and give my opinion underneath each policy.

We will also look at the district itself, including its new boundaries, political makeup and the communities these candidates are asking to represent. We will examine their backgrounds, experience and campaign finances, including who is funding them and whether any donations deserve a closer look.

I have included links throughout the article so you can review the candidates’ websites, policy positions, financial reports and public records for yourself. Then, at the end, I will bring everything together and give my overall assessment of the candidates, the race and what voters should consider before making their decision.

What Is Ohio’s 14th Congressional District?

Ohio’s new congressional map was adopted in October 2025 and will be used beginning with the 2026 election. According to the Ohio Secretary of State’s official legal description, the new 14th District has a 2020 census population of 786,630 people.

The district includes all of:

• Ashtabula County

• Geauga County

• Lake County

• Trumbull County

It also includes portions of:

• Mahoning County

• Portage County

Major population centers include Mentor, Painesville, Willoughby, Eastlake, Ashtabula, Conneaut, Chardon, Warren, Niles, Girard, Aurora, Ravenna and Canfield, along with portions of Austintown Township.

One boundary correction is important. Youngstown is not in the new 14th District. It is in the 6th District. Kent and Streetsboro are also not in the new 14th. They were moved into the 13th District.

This is a strongly Republican district. Had the new boundaries existed in 2024, Donald Trump would have carried the district by approximately 60% to 39% over Kamala Harris. That is roughly a 21-point Republican margin.

That does not make the race unwinnable for a Democrat, but it is the reality Maria Jukic is facing. She is not simply running against an incumbent. She is running against an incumbent in a district whose new boundaries strongly favor Republicans.

Meet Maria Jukic

Maria Jukic is the Democratic nominee challenging Dave Joyce.

According to her campaign biography, Jukic grew up in Cleveland in a working-class Croatian immigrant family. Her mother was a UAW member at Fisher Body and her father worked with imaging systems.

Jukic earned a bachelor’s degree in American Studies from the University of Notre Dame, a law degree from Cleveland State University and a master’s degree in theology and religious studies from John Carroll University. She also spent time in Croatia as a Fulbright scholar and worked with humanitarian and human-rights organizations.

She worked for the Cleveland Clinic for approximately 24 years, including helping develop its Arts and Medicine Institute.

Jukic was elected to Euclid City Council in November 2019 and represented Ward 7 from 2020 through 2023. During her four years on Council, she chaired the Sustainability and Parks Committee and worked on parks and lakefront projects. She did not seek reelection in 2023. City of Euclid

Jukic attempted to run as an independent for Congress in 2024, but she did not make the ballot after the Trumbull County Board of Elections invalidated enough petition signatures to leave her below the required number.

In 2026, she entered the Democratic primary and defeated Bill O’Neill and Carl Setzer to win the nomination.

The Angry Ohioan

Ohio’s 14th District: Three Democrats, Three Very Different Visions

Hey everyone, Matt Diemer here, The Angry Democrat…

Listen now

6 months ago · 3 likes · The Angry Democrat

Meet Dave Joyce

Dave Joyce is the Republican incumbent and has represented Ohio’s 14th Congressional District since January 3, 2013.

Joyce was born in Cleveland and earned an accounting degree and law degree from the University of Dayton. He worked as a public defender before becoming Geauga County prosecutor from 1988 through 2012. He was elected to Congress in November 2012 and is currently serving his seventh term.

Joyce’s campaign biography emphasizes his law-enforcement career, advocacy for the Great Lakes, work related to the opioid epidemic and support for military funding, economic growth and fiscal restraint.

Joyce serves on the House Appropriations Committee, including its Defense, Financial Services and General Government, and Transportation, Housing and Urban Development subcommittees. He chairs the Financial Services and General Government Subcommittee. He also serves on the House Homeland Security Committee.

Campaign Finance: Through June 30, 2026

The candidates’ FEC reports show an enormous financial gap.

Joyce reported approximately 23 times more receipts and nearly 93 times more cash on hand than Jukic.

There is an important qualification. Joyce entered this election cycle with approximately $2.74 million already in his campaign account, accumulated during previous cycles. Jukic’s current campaign did not begin reporting until February 2026. The cash comparison shows the actual resources available to each campaign, but it does not mean Joyce raised all $3.1 million during this election cycle.

Where Joyce’s Money Comes From

Of Joyce’s $1.41 million in receipts, the FEC reports:

• $967,101 from other political committees

• $383,806.12 from individuals

• $59,735.94 in other receipts

That means approximately 68.6% of Joyce’s receipts came from PACs and other political committees, while about 27.2% came from individuals. Dave Joyce’s FEC report

The PAC records include substantial contributions from industries affected by the committees on which Joyce serves.

PACs connected to major defense and aerospace contractors contributed at least $98,000, including PACs associated with Northrop Grumman, General Dynamics, Lockheed Martin, RTX, Boeing, BWX Technologies, Blue Origin, Leidos, BAE Systems, General Atomics, Huntington Ingalls, Parsons, Peraton and Science Applications International Corporation.

That is important because Joyce sits on the House Defense Appropriations Subcommittee. It is not proof that Joyce performed a favor for any contributor. It does show that companies with a direct interest in federal defense spending view his campaign as worth supporting.

Financial-sector PACs include:

• American Bankers Association PAC: $10,000

• Goldman Sachs PAC: $5,000

• Capital One PAC: $5,000

• PNC PAC: $5,000

Joyce chairs the Appropriations Subcommittee on Financial Services and General Government, which makes those contributions relevant to voters evaluating who has access to him.

Energy and industrial PACs include:

• Marathon Petroleum PAC: $10,000

• Chevron PAC: $10,000

• FirstEnergy PAC: $7,500

• Constellation Energy PAC: $6,000

• Koch Industries PAC: $5,000

• Vistra PAC: $3,000

Other noteworthy PAC contributions came from AIPAC, Comcast, Charter Communications, T-Mobile, Google, Walmart, Home Depot, Kroger, MGM Resorts, the National Automobile Dealers Association, insurance organizations, real-estate groups, healthcare associations and several labor unions. The complete committee-contribution records can be searched through the FEC receipt database.

High-dollar individual contributors include private-equity executives Stephen Schwarzman of Blackstone and Marc Rowan of Apollo, Anduril Industries founder Palmer Luckey, corporate executives, consultants and several contributors who identified themselves in FEC records as lobbyists.

Where Jukic’s Money Comes From

Jukic reported:

• $61,305.75 in individual contributions

• $80.04 in candidate contributions

• $291.77 transferred from another authorized committee

• No party committee contributions

• No other political committee contributions

Approximately 99.4% of her receipts came from individuals. The filings support her campaign’s claim that it is not taking corporate PAC money through June 30. Maria Jukic’s FEC report

The concern for Jukic is not an conflicts of interest, it is if can she raise enough. She ended June with only $33,692.83 in cash and $9,012.22 in campaign debt while facing an incumbent with more than $3.1 million available.

That money gap does not decide the election by itself, but it affects advertising, staffing, field operations, direct mail and the campaign’s ability to communicate across six county areas.

On the Issues

Policy Count From Their Campaign Websites: Jukic 10, Joyce 0

Jukic’s campaign website contains ten detailed policy sections explaining what she supports and what she intends to fight for in Congress.

David Joyce’s campaign website does not contain a comparable policy platform. To give voters a fair comparison, we had to look beyond his campaign website and use position pages from his official congressional website, along with his legislative record and public statements, to determine what he supports.

It is always disappointing when candidates do not clearly explain what they are running on. For most voters, getting to know a candidate begins with a Google search and a visit to the candidate’s website. That website should tell them who the candidate is, what they believe and what they intend to do if elected.

Yes, Joyce is the incumbent.

Yes, he has more than a decade of legislation, votes and public statements for voters to examine.

But voting records and congressional legislation are not easy to search or understand, especially for people who do not follow politics every day. His positions should be clearly and directly presented on his campaign website. Voters should not have to conduct a research project to figure out what someone seeking their vote actually supports.

Maria Jukic

Agriculture: Jukic supports more stable trade policy, stronger competition in agricultural markets, affordable crop insurance for family farms, support for vineyards and specialty crops and policies protecting farmland from development.

Matt’s take: Agriculture and trade policy are huge issues, and so is insurance. Farmers and farmland are under increasing pressure from rising financial burdens, unstable trade policy, and a shrinking number of people willing to do the work. It is good to see Maria include these issues in her platform, and I especially like that she specifically mentions supporting vineyards and specialty crops.

Artificial Intelligence: Jukic supports a federal AI rights framework, human review of important automated decisions, protections against algorithmic discrimination, worker-transition funding, privacy protections and labeling requirements for AI-generated material.

Matt’s take: AI will play an increasingly large role in decision-making, so I support human review of important automated decisions, especially when it comes to the military and armed conflict. Worker-transition funding also makes sense, and frankly, we should have been doing more of that when jobs were moving overseas in the 1990s. Privacy protections are important, particularly when AI companies use people’s data or intellectual property to train their models.

I would need more specifics on what a federal “AI rights framework” and protections against “algorithmic discrimination” actually mean in practice.

I am also not convinced about requiring labels on AI-generated material. There can still be a tremendous amount of human creativity behind work created with AI. I see AI as another tool, similar to word processors, spell check, Grammarly, Photoshop, Canva, and other technologies that have made it easier for people to create and express themselves. It can also serve as an important accessibility tool for people who previously struggled to participate in certain forms of writing, art, or other creative work.

Yes, AI can produce plenty of slop, but so can every other creative tool. We’ve had terrible clip art, bad Photoshop, and bad writing for decades. Ultimately, people can distinguish between good and bad work, and consumers will decide what they actually want to read, watch, or look at. If the content is bad, they won’t consume it.

Campaign Finance and Ethics Reform: Jukic supports overturning Citizens United through a constitutional amendment, requiring disclosure of dark-money spending, publicly matching small donations, banning congressional stock trading and strengthening restrictions on former officials becoming lobbyists.

Matt’s take: How could you say no to any of this? I am 100% in favor of overturning Citizens United. As for requiring disclosure of dark-money spending, I would go further. We should not have dark money in politics in the first place.

Public matching of small donations is a good idea, and I would like to see something similar to New York’s system. I have written more about how I think campaign finance reform should work on TheAngryDem.com.

Obviously, members of Congress should be banned from trading individual stocks, and those rules need to actually be enforced. The revolving door between elected office, lobbying firms, and corporate boards also needs to stop.

I applaud this entire section of her platform.

Cost of Living: Jukic supports expanding the Child Tax Credit, increasing childcare funding, requiring data centers to pay for grid upgrades, addressing price gouging, expanding housing construction, raising the minimum wage and challenging corporate consolidation.

Matt’s take: I’m in favor of all of these.

Expanding the Child Tax Credit and increasing childcare funding both make sense. However, I also think we need to consider what we are incentivizing. The more we subsidize childcare without addressing wages, the more we reinforce an economy where both parents are expected to work full time and send their children to daycare or school for most of the day.

I would rather see wages reach a point where one full-time professional income can realistically support a family, giving parents more choice over whether both need to work full time.

Data Centers: Jukic opposes large-scale data-center development in communities that do not want it and supports ending federal subsidies, requiring disclosure of water and energy use, protecting residential ratepayers, restoring environmental enforcement and conditioning federal assistance on community approval.

Matt’s take: This all seems reasonable.

Environment and Climate Change: Jukic prioritizes Lake Erie protection, EPA funding, stronger enforcement against polluters, clean-energy investment, conservation assistance for farmers and an energy transition that protects workers and maintains grid reliability.

Matt’s take: Lake Erie is one of our greatest natural resources and should have strong protections. The challenge is balancing those protections with development and agriculture.

That means addressing runoff from cities and development that enters local watersheds, while also working with farmers to reduce fertilizer and other agricultural runoff that eventually reaches the lake.

Healthcare: Jukic supports lowering the Medicare eligibility age from 65 to 62, addressing healthcare monopolies, expanding Medicare drug-price negotiations, supporting rural hospitals and community health centers, relieving medical debt and eventually establishing universal coverage.

Matt’s take: This seems like another candidate who is hesitant to simply run on healthcare for all and establish a clear path toward it as the end goal. Call it Medicare for All, Medicaid for All, or something else, but make universal healthcare the objective.

Lowering the Medicare age, negotiating drug prices, supporting community health centers, and relieving medical debt are all positive changes. But, in my opinion, these are still incremental fixes to a much larger problem. Healthcare should be a protected right, and our long-term policy should go towards healthcare for all.

Social Security: Jukic opposes benefit reductions and supports raising or eliminating the payroll-tax income cap, considering contributions from investment income and creating a bipartisan working group focused on long-term solvency.

Matt’s take: Absolutely protect Social Security. If you pay into the system, you are owed those benefits, and the government has a responsibility to honor that commitment. At the same time, I’d love to hear somebody say that the private equity executives who gut companies, raid pensions, and destroy workers’ retirements to enrich themselves should be put in fucking jail.

Tax Policy: Jukic supports working-family tax relief, closing the carried-interest loophole, taxing investment income more like wages, reducing corporate tax avoidance, raising the minimum wage and restoring Congress’s authority over tariffs.

Matt’s take: Make Congress work again. Congress needs to restore its authority over tariffs and everything else it has handed over to the executive branch. But at the same time, if somebody isn’t talking about reducing the deficit, controlling congressional spending, getting the budget under control, and finding a way out of nearly $40 trillion in national debt, I don’t take their tax policy seriously.

Dave Joyce: as a reminder, I had to search the Internet for these policies because he has nothing on his website

Agriculture: Joyce supports rural broadband, voluntary water-quality programs, addressing agricultural tax and workforce problems and protecting Ohio’s farming economy.

Matt’s take: Rural broadband? It’s 2026. Dave Joyce has been in Congress for seven terms, and we’re still talking about rural broadband like it’s some new policy goal. Get that shit done. Internet access is a necessity. And why are we still acting like physically running cable everywhere is the only solution? Satellite broadband technology exists right now and can connect places that traditional infrastructure struggles to reach. Stop talking about rural broadband and actually get people connected. What a fucking joke.

Economy and Jobs: Joyce supports reducing regulations, promoting domestic manufacturing, lowering inflation through fiscal restraint, expanding job training and helping small businesses compete globally.

Matt’s take: Nothing wrong with promoting domestic manufacturing, lowering inflation through fiscal restraint, expanding job training, and helping small businesses compete globally. I’m 100% on board with all of that. Reducing regulations, though, is something I would judge regulation by regulation. Some regulations are unnecessary burdens, while others exist for very good reasons.

Education: Joyce says the federal government should provide schools with funding and flexibility while leaving local education decisions to school districts and parents.

Matt’s take: I would love to know Dave’s opinion on Ohio’s school voucher program. If the position is that education decisions should be left to local school districts and parents, where does he stand on using public education dollars to fund private-school tuition? I think he is in support.

Energy: Joyce supports an all-of-the-above energy strategy centered on domestic production, including Ohio oil and natural gas, and opposes environmental regulations he believes would increase prices or eliminate American jobs.

Matt’s take: I agree with this. We need to produce energy any way we can. I wish we were building more wind, solar, distributed energy technologies, an upgraded and more distributed grid, and nuclear power. We should be aggressively investing in fusion as well. If China beats us to commercially viable fusion, then goodnight.

Federal Budget: Joyce identifies fiscal responsibility and a balanced budget as priorities, although the federal-budget page on his official website does not currently provide a detailed plan explaining the spending cuts or revenue changes he supports.

Matt’s take: Again, I can’t take anybody seriously who isn’t talking about the roughly $1.8 trillion annual deficit and nearly $40 trillion national debt, especially with the bond market where it is. Make Congress work again. Congress has the power of the purse, and you’re not serious about fiscal responsibility unless you’re talking about using it.

Great Lakes: Joyce supports continued federal investment in the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative and points to his work authorizing and reauthorizing the program as a central accomplishment.

Matt’s take: There aren’t many Ohioans who don’t understand the incredible resource we have in the Great Lakes. Protecting them, keeping them clean, accessible, and usable, and preserving one of the largest freshwater systems on Earth should be of utmost importance.

Healthcare: Joyce supports access to affordable coverage for people with preexisting conditions but favors a patient-centered, market-oriented system with less federal involvement in healthcare decisions.

Matt’s take: I’m going to assume a “market-oriented” system with less federal involvement means no healthcare for all. So, boo. Again, if we’re not talking about healthcare being affordable, accessible, and a human right, whether that means healthcare for all, Medicare for All, or Medicaid for All, then you’re not serious about healthcare reform, in my opinion.

Immigration: Joyce supports increased border security, additional action against drug trafficking and a bipartisan overhaul of what he describes as a broken immigration system.

Matt’s take: I agree with this. Our immigration system is broken. I have stories.

Infrastructure: Joyce supports federal investment in roads, bridges and broadband but argues that projects should not be financed through large tax increases or additional deficit spending.

Matt’s take: I agree that we shouldn’t be funding infrastructure through more taxes and deficit spending. We desperately need to future-proof and modernize our infrastructure, including high-speed rail, and maybe that warrants a major capital expenditure. But with our current fiscal situation, we need to figure out how to pay for it.

National Security: Joyce supports maintaining high levels of military readiness and using his Appropriations Committee position to fund defense operations, military families and American interests overseas.

Matt’s take: I agree with this, but national security also means making sure the men and women serving in our military are taken care of during and after their service. That includes mental healthcare, physical healthcare, support for military families, and helping service members successfully transition into civilian life.

Social Security and Medicare: Joyce says Social Security and Medicare must be protected for current and future beneficiaries while arguing that Congress must address their long-term solvency, but his page does not identify the specific reforms he would support.

Matt’s take: Agree. And I’ll say it again: I wish somebody would say they would put private equity executives and venture capitalists in jail when they gut companies and destroy workers’ pension systems. People work their entire lives for those pensions. They should not be treated as another pile of money for investors to raid.

Summary

We have to call a spade a spade here. Ohio’s 14th District is roughly R+21, and Dave Joyce is a seven-term incumbent with a massive financial advantage. He is not a loud, boisterous, rock-the-boat Republican. He is an established incumbent people are comfortable with, and in a district this safe, he does not have to campaign the same way a challenger does.

Maria Jukic does. She is a former councilwoman, attorney, and longtime healthcare executive who has put detailed policies on her website and is actively trying to explain what she would do in Congress. I applaud that. She is campaigning, putting ideas out there, and trying to communicate with voters with the resources she has.

The financial difference is substantial. Joyce has more than $3.1 million in cash compared with Jukic’s roughly $34,000 at the end of June. Without major outside investment or the DCCC making this a targeted Red to Blue race, that is an enormous gap to overcome.

It is also difficult to compare a challenger with a seven-term incumbent apples to apples. Joyce has years of committee work, legislation, congressional terminology, and votes to draw from. He can point to an extensive record, positively or negatively. A challenger has none of those advantages because she has never served in Congress.

That is the inherent advantage of incumbency, especially in a heavily gerrymandered district. But Maria is putting herself and her policies out there, campaigning for the job, and giving voters something substantive to evaluate. That deserves acknowledgment.

Stay Angry.

The potential increase was discussed by former Beachwood City Council member Mike Burkons on Episode 69 of his podcast, Everything Is Local.

For a home with a county market value of $500,000, Burkons calculated that three separate changes could add approximately $1,251 to the annual property-tax bill. A school construction levy scheduled to come off the books would reduce that increase by approximately $364, leaving a potential net increase of about $887.

That number assumes both countywide tax increases on the November ballot pass.

The Three Potential Increases

Ohio calculates property taxes using 35 percent of a property’s market value. That means a home valued at $500,000 has a taxable value of $175,000 for millage calculations.

The first potential increase is the Cuyahoga County Health and Human Services levy.

County voters will decide in November whether to renew the current 4.7-mill levy and increase it to 7.2 mills. The additional 2.5 mills would cost property owners approximately $87.50 annually for every $100,000 of market value, according to Signal Cleveland’s reporting on the ballot proposal.

For a $500,000 home, that would be an additional:

$437.50 per year

The county estimates that the higher levy would generate an additional $111 million annually for health and human services. The money supports programs including child welfare, senior services, behavioral health, housing assistance and other parts of the county’s social safety net.

The second potential increase is a new 2.25-mill levy for the Cuyahoga County Board of Developmental Disabilities.

That levy would cost approximately $78.75 annually for every $100,000 of market value. For a $500,000 home, that would add:

$393.75 per year

The levy would last 10 years and generate an estimated $99.7 million annually. The Board of Developmental Disabilities serves approximately 15,000 people across Cuyahoga County. Agency officials say enrollment and caregiver costs have increased while the board has continued operating primarily from a levy approved in 2005.

Those two ballot measures would add a combined $831.25 to the annual bill on a $500,000 home.

Beachwood’s Temporary Tax Reduction Is Ending

The third increase does not depend on a November vote.

Beachwood has the authority to collect four inside mills of property tax. In 2023, City Council temporarily reduced the amount collected from four mills to 1.6 mills after voters approved a bond issue for the construction of new elementary school buildings.

The city’s own 2024 annual financial report explains that the reduction was intended to last three years before Beachwood returned to collecting the full four mills in tax year 2026, with those taxes collected in 2027.

That means the 2.4 mills Beachwood temporarily stopped collecting are scheduled to return. For a home with a $500,000 market value, restoring those mills would add approximately:

$420 per year

Burkons does not dispute that the city announced its intention to restore the millage when it approved the temporary reduction in 2023. His argument is that the restoration was not automatic because City Council must approve the millage annually. He believes council should have publicly demonstrated why Beachwood needed the additional revenue before voting to collect it.

As Burkons explained:

“I am well aware that the city will say that, in 2023, it stated its intention to lower the inside millage from four mills to 1.6 mills for only three years: 2024, 2025 and 2026. But it was also pointed out in 2023 that council could not commit to that decision for three years because the millage has to be voted on annually. If the city can operate for three years without collecting those 2.4 mills, the lower millage should remain unless council can make the case for why the additional money is needed.

“That case was never made. Beachwood’s general fund revenue exceeded $52 million in 2025, which was approximately $3 million more than it had ever collected and between $15 million and $20 million more than similar-sized cities that also provide excellent services, including Lyndhurst, Mayfield Heights, Bay Village and Rocky River.

“Increasing the inside millage collected from 1.6 mills to four mills will generate another $3 million to $4 million for the general fund while increasing the average property-tax bill by more than $400 per year.

“Instead of explaining why the city needs an additional $3 million to $4 million annually, or why Beachwood needs to spend close to twice as much to provide services as other similarly sized cities, city officials simply acted as though they were entitled to the money. Not because they demonstrated a need for it, but because they could legally collect it through a simple and quiet council vote that required no voter approval.

“This is not a unique concept. Many cities do not levy the full amount of inside millage they are legally permitted to collect. Those cities understand that inside millage is the only property tax that does not require voter approval. Just because a city can levy the full amount does not mean it should, unless it can make the case for why the money is needed.”

Still, whether it is called a tax increase or the expiration of a temporary reduction, the effect on the homeowner is the same. Compared with the previous year, the bill goes up by approximately $420.

The Middle School Debt Is Coming Off

There is one reduction that would partially offset these increases.

According to Burkons, the final payment on debt approved by Beachwood voters in 2002 for middle school construction is scheduled for December 2026. Retiring that debt would remove approximately 2.08 mills from the property-tax bill.

For a $500,000 home, that would save approximately:

$364 per year

The complete calculation would therefore look like this:

• Health and Human Services levy increase: $437.50

• Board of Developmental Disabilities levy: $393.75

• Restoration of Beachwood’s 2.4 inside mills: $420

• Gross increase: $1,251.25

• Middle school debt coming off: minus $364

• Estimated net increase: $887.25

The final amount will depend on the property’s county valuation, applicable tax credits, the precise millage appearing on the tax bill and whether voters approve both county levies.

Beachwood Already Collects Substantial Revenue

Burkons’s larger argument is that Beachwood does not have a revenue problem. It has a spending problem.

The city’s audited financial records provide some context for that argument.

In 2024, Beachwood budgeted approximately $52.1 million in general fund revenue and collected approximately $51 million. General fund expenditures were approximately $50.9 million.

The city ended 2024 with a total general fund balance of approximately $25.8 million, including $10.8 million classified as unassigned and available for spending at the city’s discretion. The city also reported approximately $23.3 million in its capital improvements fund.

Beachwood’s financial report says the temporary 2.4-mill reduction lowered property-tax collections by approximately $2.9 million in 2024. The exact amount generated when the mills return will depend on property valuations at the time of collection.

The report also shows why Beachwood spends as much as it does. Police and fire accounted for approximately 42 percent of city expenses in 2024. Public services accounted for another 23 percent. The city reported spending an average of approximately $4.1 million annually on infrastructure improvements during the previous five years.

Beachwood officials have also cited contracted salary increases and continued investments in roads, sewers and recreational facilities as reasons for higher expenditures and transfers from the general fund.

Those expenses do not automatically prove that every purchase or project is necessary. They do show that comparing Beachwood’s total revenue with another suburb requires more than simply comparing population. Cities can have different commercial tax bases, employment levels, infrastructure obligations, services and accounting structures.

Burkons also questioned the city’s spending priorities, including what he described as a roughly $50,000 replacement vehicle for Mayor Justin Berns. That specific vehicle purchase was discussed on the podcast, but it should be treated as Burkons’s characterization unless supported by the corresponding purchase ordinance or city invoice.

Two Decisions Belong to Voters. One Does Not.

The distinction between these three increases is important.

Voters will decide whether to approve the Health and Human Services levy and the Board of Developmental Disabilities levy. Residents can examine what the programs provide, how much money the agencies already receive and whether the additional taxes are justified.

Beachwood’s restoration of the 2.4 inside mills is different. Residents will not vote on that increase. City Council approved the temporary reduction and its eventual expiration through the city’s tax and budget process.

For a $500,000 Beachwood home, that city decision accounts for approximately $420 of the projected $887 net increase.

Beachwood residents should know what may be coming before they receive their 2027 tax bills. They should also understand which increases they will decide at the ballot box and which increase has already been set in motion by their local government.

Listen to Mike Burkons’s complete discussion on Episode 69 of Everything Is Local.

Stay Angry.

Disclaimer: This piece was written with the assistance of AI using a transcript from the Everything Is Local podcast by Mike Burkons as the source material.

Sooner or later, nursing homes touch all our lives. Whether it’s a parent, a grandparent, or eventually ourselves, few of us will escape some encounter with long-term care in America. And yet, for an industry so deeply woven into the fabric of aging and dying with dignity, what we’ve built is anything but dignified.

Roughly 15,000 nursing homes operate across the United States today. Seventy percent of them exist to turn a profit. Only 30 percent are nonprofit, and even that distinction, as we’ll see, offers little real protection to the families who place their trust and savings in these institutions. [1]

In an earlier piece, we examined how private equity has quietly reshaped nursing education, extracting value from an industry meant to train caregivers. Here, we turn to the other end of that pipeline: the facilities themselves, where for-profit and nonprofit nursing homes alike have found ways to exploit both the families paying for care and the workers providing it.

What emerges is a system rife with neglect, one that leaves society’s most vulnerable seniors exposed to substandard conditions while the people hired to care for them are stretched thin, underpaid, and overworked. This is not a story of a few bad actors. It is a story of an industry structured, in many cases, to profit from the very corners it cuts.

When the Rating System Itself Can’t Be Trusted

For families beginning the painful search for a nursing home, the government offers what seems like a straightforward solution: the CMS Five-Star Quality Rating System. On paper, it’s a simple tool. Plug in a facility’s name, get a score, and make an informed decision. In practice, it’s far less reliable than it appears.

CMS bases its ratings on three components: health inspections, staffing levels, and quality measures. The inspections are conducted by outside surveyors and carry some independent weight. But the other two, staffing and quality, are self-reported by the very facilities being graded.

That distinction matters enormously. It means a nursing home with real, documented problems can, through the numbers it chooses to submit, transform a one- or two-star rating into a glowing four or five stars.

This is not a hypothetical loophole. A New York Times investigation by reporter Katie Thomas examined more than 50 nursing homes that the federal government itself had flagged on a special watchlist for serious quality concerns. The finding was damning: two-thirds of those facilities still carried four- or five-star ratings, propped up almost entirely by the self-reported staffing and quality data CMS allowed them to submit. [2]

In other words, the very system designed to protect families from bad actors can be gamed by the bad actors themselves, and often is.

A Watchlist That Turns Away the Watched

The Special Focus Facility program, run by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, exists to flag the worst-performing nursing homes in the country and subject them to the kind of intensive, sustained oversight that ordinary facilities never receive.

It sounds like exactly the safeguard a vulnerable population needs. There’s just one problem: the program is capped at 88 facilities nationwide, even though more than 500 nursing homes currently meet the criteria to be on it. [3]

The reason isn’t a lack of bad facilities. It’s a lack of money. Monitoring a facility under the Special Focus Facility program is resource-intensive, requiring far more frequent inspections and follow-up than CMS’s routine oversight allows. The agency simply doesn’t have the budget to extend that level of scrutiny beyond a small fraction of the homes that need it. [4]

The result is a kind of triage by default. Hundreds of facilities that, by the government’s own standards, warrant urgent intervention are left off the list entirely, not because they’re safe, but because there isn’t enough funding to watch them.

A Reform Bill That Never Got Its Chance

The Nursing Home Reform Modernization Act of 2021 was, on paper, exactly the kind of ambitious overhaul long-term care advocates had been demanding for years. Among its provisions was additional funding to expand the Special Focus Facility program so that oversight could finally extend beyond 88 facilities to the hundreds more that needed it.

It never got the chance. Like so much legislation caught in the machinery of a divided Congress, the bill quietly died when the 117th Congress adjourned.

Its ambitions went well beyond funding. The bipartisan bill would have required CMS to establish a ranking system for both Medicare skilled nursing facilities and Medicaid nursing facilities, replacing the current patchwork with something more rigorous.

It would have created an advisory council tasked with studying the ranking process itself, including the metrics used, the data sources relied upon, and the quality controls in place, and using those findings to build a system with real teeth. Facilities that ranked poorly would face escalating enforcement actions until they met the required standards, while high-performing facilities would risk losing that designation if their performance slipped.

The Nursing Home Reform Modernization Act may have died a quiet death on its own, but its key ideas didn’t disappear entirely. Key provisions were folded into the Build Back Better Act, the sprawling social spending package that passed the House in November 2021. For a moment, it looked like reform might arrive through the back door.

The version that passed the House included several nursing home provisions. By the time it reached the Senate, two more had been added, including language that would have expanded the Special Focus Facility program to cover at least 3.5 percent of all nursing facilities. This would have raised the cap from roughly 88 facilities to approximately 550, alongside $800 million in grant funding for states to improve staffing and infection control in long-term care settings. [5]

Then came the retreat. As the bill moved through the Senate, Senators Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona balked at the scope and cost of its healthcare and spending provisions. Much of the original ambition was stripped away to secure their votes.

What survived the negotiations, and what didn’t, would go on to define the final product. The bill that eventually passed, reshaped, scaled back, and rebranded as the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022, squeaked through the Senate only with a tie-breaking vote from then-Vice President Kamala Harris. [6]

The One Big “Beautiful” Bill vs. the Affordable Care Act

Anything short of universal healthcare that is free at the point of contact is only putting a Band-Aid on the healthcare crisis in our nation.

In my interview with Jake Underwood on The Jake Underwood Show, I highlighted the issues with the Affordable Care Act, including how subsidies for the program are unsustainable and how underlying problems, such as rising healthcare costs, drive up the overall cost of the ACA.

In a future article, we will look at how both healthcare bills negatively affect all Americans. To stay on topic for this article, however, we will look at something else that is not manageable: staffing in nursing homes and how both acts mandate unreasonable metrics in the nursing home setting.

The One Big Beautiful Bill Act is in no way a landmark healthcare bill. The bill placed a moratorium on the 24/7 registered-nurse staffing requirement for nursing homes and eliminated specific minimum hours for nursing staff to deliver care to your loved ones until 2034.

This lets nursing homes staff their facilities in a manner that is neither safe nor conducive to proper care.

Current staffing levels in many nursing homes are poor, to put it lightly. I have worked in a few, so I will speak from personal experience.

At one facility in the Cleveland area, I was the nursing supervisor, and nurses would constantly have ratios ranging from one nurse for every 15 patients to one nurse for every 30 patients. At times, a nurse would be lucky to have any help from nurse aides.

Many times, care would go incomplete because of staffing issues. We cannot place the blame on the nurses, either. They do their best to prioritize care and get everything done during their shifts.

It is impossible to provide quality care to large numbers of residents. Nursing homes need to stop giving nurses and aides unrealistic patient ratios.

The Insane Cost of Long-Term Care

Let’s call it what it is: long-term care is a cash grab.

Facilities have long taken advantage of residents and their family members.

Oakwood Village is a group of facilities in California and Utah. As noted in its advertisement, the company charges residents according to the amount of care they may need.

Unbeknownst to prospective residents and their families, nurses and nurse aides do not pay attention to what “level” a resident is, nor are they told by management. Nurses and nurse aides have licenses and certifications. If they provide some care but refuse to provide all the care a resident needs, that could be considered abandonment of patient care, and a nurse could subsequently lose their license for refusing care.

Therefore, facilities charging according to medication amounts and activities of daily living, or ADLs, is a complete cash grab and nothing more.

For those reading who are unfamiliar with ADLs, they are activities of daily living, including getting dressed, bathing, brushing one’s teeth, and other basic tasks.

As a nurse, I would not give a hoot what level a resident is. If they have 30 medications and need help with 10 ADLs, I would not care if they were classified as a level-one resident.

They need care, and I chose to go into nursing to help people, not to classify them into financial categories.

Nursing Homes in Ohio: The Racket Putting Profits Ahead of People

Another facility to examine is Dublin Glenn, located in Columbus, Ohio. It is owned by Continental Senior Communities, which owns facilities across Ohio, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Kentucky.

In the pictures above, one can see that Dublin Glenn charges an insane amount of money per month while offering nurse aides only $16 per hour. It also has a structure similar to Oakwood Village, charging a monthly rate plus a premium depending on how much care a resident may need.

I personally worked as a travel nurse at this location, and it was a lackluster experience.

Besides charging residents an insane amount of money and underpaying staff, although nurses were paid $30 per hour, which is around the industry standard, the facility had some shoddy nursing practices.

One night, the facility brought in a new resident who began entering other patients’ rooms, pulling them out of their beds, and beating them. When nurse aides attempted to intervene, they were met with violence. The nurse aides and I had to intervene to ensure the safety of the other residents and the resident in question.

Accordingly, I had to document what happened so the physicians could adjust medication dosages as needed.

The next day, I received a phone call from the director of nursing asking me to change my documentation because the Ohio Department of Health would cite the facility.

I stated that I would not falsify any documentation and that bringing in residents who were inappropriate for the facility was a patient and employee safety issue.

I was asked not to return to Dublin Glenn thereafter.

Next, we will look at another facility: Greenbrier Health Center in Parma Heights, Ohio, a facility marred by issues.

I was the night-shift supervisor for the facility, and the way it treated residents and nurses left much to be desired. Residents were seen as an income stream and nurses as the people who provided that income.

Management spent little to no money on resident activities, equipment, supplies, or food. Many times, when residents needed to be cleaned up, the facility had no wipes available to clean them.

The nursing administration would routinely ask nurses to complete tasks outside the scope of their practice, which means tasks certain nurses are not legally allowed to perform.

Whenever there was a safety concern involving a patient, nurses would come to me and ask what should be done. In my mind, if it was serious or the patient needed emergency testing, I would always advocate for what was best for the patient and call 911 to have them sent to the hospital for further evaluation.

The parent company of Greenbrier, CommuniCare, has an internal process under which a nurse must call the company’s nurse practitioner and “get permission” to send the patient to the hospital.

This was a corporate policy intended to ensure that hospital readmission rates remained low so that the facility could receive as much reimbursement from Medicare as possible.

As a nurse, I have developed my sense of, “Oh shit, something is wrong here,” and I am not going to have someone else tell me not to advocate for a patient.

I always received pushback from the administration, but the patients I sent out had severe issues that needed an acute response.

One last note on Greenbrier: a few years ago, Northeast Ohio experienced massive power outages due to tornadoes and storms that rolled through the region. I was the supervisor the night that happened.

Administrators came in to “assist” with ensuring that rooms had power. Residents gathered near the front entrance, trying to find whatever little comfort they could in the heat.

I found ice cream in the kitchen and started handing it out to keep residents cool.

The nursing administration saw what I was doing and told me that I needed to charge each resident because the ice cream was company property and the facility sold it to make extra money.

They then put a padlock on the freezer.

I waited until the administrators left, opened the freezer with a bolt cutter, and handed the ice cream back out to the residents.

Not only did the administration refuse to hand out ice cream to residents during a blackout, but it also created safety hazards throughout the facility by running wires through hallways and into residents’ rooms. It didn’t care to tape down the wires or ensure resident or employee safety.

The administrators came in to check boxes, say they had done something, and leave.

After those few nights, the director of nursing and assistant director of nursing resigned, but there were new sheriffs in town.

The new nursing administration did not like that I advocated for residents. It subsequently turned off all my facility accounts and removed my ability to pick up shifts until I spoke with the administrators.

I went into that meeting and, without going into detail about the level of disrespect they had for patients and employees, handed them my resignation and left.

I left with my dignity still intact, knowing that I had done what was best for the residents on a wild night.

Profits should never come before people, and people should never be taken advantage of during a crisis.

For HIPAA compliance, I will state that no patient-identifying information was photographed and no photographs of patients were taken.

Greenbrier is not the only facility worth mentioning.

The now-closed Westlake Rehab, which was located on Crocker Road, had a resident escape and later be found dead in a nearby golf course pond. [7]

The facility was eventually shut down because of staffing issues and serious patient concerns that had accumulated throughout the years.

I reached out to one of the facility’s previous administrators, who had little to say. In my personal experience, many healthcare workers feel gagged from talking about working conditions because they fear retribution from one powerful entity or another.

I also reached out to the nursing home administrator who was working at the time of the resident’s death. I received no reply. That individual has since allowed their nursing home administrator license to expire.

House of Loreto in Canton, Ohio, was recently shut down by the state because of “severe care failures and neglect that placed residents in real and present danger.”

The Catholic Diocese of Youngstown sold the facility to Hari Group LLC in March 2025. Following the sale, new and inexperienced management cut staff and operational costs. [8]

A January 2026 inspection by the Ohio Department of Health revealed that 12 of the facility’s 29 residents were at serious risk and that six residents had already suffered actual harm. [9]

Some of the department’s most serious findings are listed on the Ohio Attorney General’s website. [10]

Other “honorable mentions” include Foundations Health Solutions, The Avenue, and Saber Healthcare Group. All have laundry lists of lawsuits and allegations involving neglect and poor employee relations.

We find this primarily in corporate-owned nursing homes, where staffing is short and resources are scarce, but the monthly fees are outrageous.

If one thing is certain, it is that we do not care about our elderly.

We need to do something, and it all starts with giving a damn about elderly people and people with disabilities in our nation. Right now, the evidence points to the fact that we absolutely do not care, and most of the industry’s problems stem from that.

It will only get worse from here because, the longer we wait, people will literally get eaten alive. [11]

Stay Angry

Guest Writer: This article was contributed by a local Angry Patriot.

The Angry Democrat / The Angry Ohioan welcomes submissions from local writers and community members who want to contribute thoughtful commentary on the Democratic Party, our democracy, public policy, and issues affecting Northeast Ohio and beyond.

Interested in writing for us? Contact us at Matt@theangrydem.com

Bibliography

1. Medicare Payment Advisory Commission, June 2025 Report to Congress: Medicare and the Health Care Delivery System

2. Katie Thomas, “Medicare Star Ratings Allow Nursing Homes to Game the System,” The New York Times

3. Special Focus Facilities vs. Special Focus Facility Candidates, Journal of the American Medical Directors Association

4. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, Revisions to the Special Focus Facility Program

5. Center for Medicare Advocacy, “Build Back Better Act: House and Senate Nursing Home Provisions Compared”

6. United States Senate Roll Call Vote 325, 117th Congress, Second Session

7. “71-Year-Old Man Drowns After Wandering Away From Westlake Rehab Center,” Cleveland 19 News

8. “State Seeks Closure of Canton’s House of Loreto Nursing Home,” The Canton Repository

9. “Ohio Attorney General Seeks to Shut Down Canton Nursing Home Over Safety Failures,” News 5 Cleveland

10. Ohio Attorney General, “Yost Seeks to Relocate Canton Nursing Home Patients as State Moves to Shut Down Facility”

11. “Family of Woman Killed by Alligator Sues Florida Retirement Community,” NBC News

America feels like a country arguing with itself in a locked room. Fifty states, one flag, one Constitution, one shared history, yet we behave like rival nations trapped inside the same borders. We call ourselves the United States, but we’re not acting united at all.

Some states threaten to defy federal laws. Some leaders talk about breaking away. Some groups openly hate the flag. Others cheer for the government to fail just so their political enemies look bad. It’s madness, not because disagreement is wrong, but because we’ve forgotten the difference between disagreement and destruction. Disagreement is healthy.

We’ve confused “I want a better country” with “I want the other side to lose.” And that shift is tearing us apart.

The irony is that most Americans, regardless of political identity, actually want the same core things: a stable economy, safe communities, a government that works, and a future where their kids have opportunities.

But instead of recognizing shared goals, we fixate on different methods and treat them as proof that the other side is dangerous, stupid, or evil. We’ve turned policy debates into moral battles. We’ve turned neighbors into enemies. And we’re paying for it.

Division Isn’t New, but It’s Louder

America has always had conflict. We’ve fought over land, rights, culture, religion, immigration, economics, and identity since the beginning. But today’s division feels different because it’s amplified. Social media rewards outrage. News outlets reward fear.

Politicians reward conflict because conflict keeps people loyal. Anger has become a currency, and we’re spending it recklessly.

The result is a country where people don’t just disagree. They assume the worst about each other.

If someone votes differently, they’re not just wrong; they’re a threat. If someone supports a policy you dislike, they’re not just misinformed; they’re part of a conspiracy. We’ve built a culture where the loudest voices drown out the reasonable ones and where every issue becomes a battlefield.

But here’s the truth we keep ignoring: a country cannot function when half of it wants the other half to fail.

We’ve Forgotten What a Nation Actually Is

A nation is not a collection of perfectly aligned individuals. It’s a messy, diverse, complicated group of people who agree to share a future. That’s the deal. That’s the whole point.

You don’t have to like everyone in your country.

You don’t have to agree with them.

But you do have to recognize that they’re part of the same project, the same experiment, the same promise.

When states fight each other, when groups root for national failure, and when people celebrate division, they’re not fighting for America.

They’re fighting against the idea of America.

Because America only works when we believe in something bigger than our own side.

Shared Goals, Different Paths

The most frustrating part of our division is how unnecessary it is. Strip away the slogans, the party labels, and the media narratives, and you’ll find that most Americans want the same outcomes:

• Shared prosperity

• Safe communities

• Functional government

• Fairness

• Opportunity for the next generation

These aren’t partisan goals. These are human goals.

Where we differ is in how to achieve them. Some people want more government involvement. Some want less. Some want stricter laws. Some want more freedom. Some want rapid change. Some want slow change.

That’s normal. That’s healthy. That’s democracy.

But instead of treating different approaches as part of the process, we treat them as existential threats. We’ve turned policy disagreements into identity wars. We’ve convinced ourselves that compromise is weakness and that cooperation is betrayal.

The truth is simpler: we can have different methods without having different missions.

The Flag Problem

The American flag used to be a symbol of shared identity. Today, it’s become a political Rorschach test. Some people see it as a symbol of freedom. Others see it as a symbol of oppression. Some wave it proudly. Others refuse to stand for it.

But the flag isn’t the problem. The problem is that we’ve stopped agreeing on what the flag represents.

It’s supposed to represent the idea that we’re in this together, that we’re part of the same story. When groups hate the flag, or when others weaponize it as a political symbol, we lose the common ground that keeps a nation stable.

A country without shared symbols becomes a country without shared meaning.

Cheering for Failure Is Cheering Against Yourself

One of the strangest trends in modern politics is the celebration of national failure. If the economy dips, one side cheers. If a policy collapses, the other side celebrates. If a leader stumbles, millions of people treat it like a sports victory.

But when the country fails, nobody wins. Not your party. Not your ideology. Not your community. Not your family.

If you want your political opponents to fail so badly that you’re willing to let the country burn, you’re not fighting for America. You’re fighting for a scoreboard.

And scoreboards don’t build nations.

The Path Forward, or Whatever We’re Calling It Now

We don’t fix division by pretending it doesn’t exist. We don’t fix it by shouting louder or by treating every disagreement like a war. But I’m not here to hand out answers or pretend I know the magic formula for unity. I’m not even sure anyone does.

What I do know is that we’re living in a moment where the word “United” feels more like a habit than a description. We keep repeating it because it’s printed on our documents and stitched onto our flag, but repetition isn’t the same as reality. You can say a thing long enough that you forget to check if it’s still true.

We keep insisting we’re one country, but everything we do suggests otherwise. We fight, we divide, we root against each other, and we call it patriotism. We tear at the same fabric we expect to hold us together.

Maybe the truth isn’t that we’re losing unity. Maybe it’s that we stopped wanting it.

If that’s the case, I’m not sure what comes next. And maybe that’s the part we should be thinking about.

Stay Angry

Guest Writer: This article was contributed by a local Angry Patriot.

The Angry Democrat / The Angry Ohioan welcomes submissions from local writers and community members who want to contribute thoughtful commentary on the Democratic Party, our democracy, public policy, and issues affecting Northeast Ohio and beyond.

Interested in writing for us? Contact us at Matt@theangrydem.com

I remember watching my uncle at softball practice, watching my dad and uncle play catch outside the house, and gathering kids from the street for makeshift baseball games in the post office parking lot in front of my house.

When my dad, uncle, and grandfather watched the Cleveland Indians, I was the official beer fetcher. I was always especially excited when they wanted their beer poured into a mug because I could leave a little bit in the bottom of the can and steal a couple of sips for myself.

Today, my family has a Diemer baseball group chat where we either celebrate or lament the Cleveland Guardians. We send reels and clips, talk about trades and statistics, and share our memories and hopes for our favorite sport.

Since moving back to the United States, I have gone to a lot of games at Progressive Field. In 2021 and 2022, I probably went to around 30 games. Over the past couple of years, however, I have gone less and less.

It is not because I like baseball less. It is because of what I have been seeing at the ballpark, what I have learned about the ballpark, and the experience I am getting for the money.

I want to put my thoughts out there and see if other people are feeling the same way.

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TL;DR: The ramblings of a middle-aged baseball fan, or has the enshittification of baseball arrived? Centralized food, $15 beers, grab-and-go concessions, questionable tipping practices, touchscreens, digital-only tickets, and fewer human interactions. Is Progressive Field losing what made going to a baseball game feel like baseball?

The food has become ridiculously expensive

Over the years, Progressive Field made a real effort to bring local restaurants and Cleveland food into the ballpark. Especially during the renovations in 2015 and 2016, the organization added places like Melt, Barrio, Sweet Moses, Momocho, Fat Head’s, Dante’s Inferno, and the Brew Kettle. The team promoted those local additions when they were introduced.

Cleveland was becoming known as a foodie city, and Progressive Field was trying to put something new and novel into the ballpark. Generally speaking, I thought the food was good.

In recent years, however, everything has gotten ridiculously expensive, and the quality has gone down dramatically.

I have been told that more of the food operation has been centralized.

An $8 hot dog that has been sitting in a warmer for hours, dried and shriveled on a hard bun, is not uncommon. At this point, it feels like that is simply how they make a hot dog.

The popcorn is not always freshly popped. I have watched workers take popcorn from giant plastic bags sitting behind the counter, fill the display machine with it, and then scoop it out in front of customers as if it came directly from the machine. The popcorn machine has become a prop.

A local craft beer from somewhere like the Brew Kettle or Fat Head’s can run around $15. Buy two and add a tip, and you are spending well over $30.

There are still some gems around the park. The food at 5 Star the hotdogs are made fresh to order and can still run around $12. Dante’s Inferno Pizza is probably the best deal in the ballpark. The last time I bought one, it cost around $11 for a personal pepperoni pizza.

But the overall food quality has fallen to the point where I barely eat at the stadium anymore.

I have been to Major League and Minor League ballparks around the country. Some have had special food and special experiences. New York was overpriced, but the food I bought was at least decent. At Comerica Park in Detroit, I had one of the best smash burgers I have ever eaten from some random concession stand in the upper level.

Progressive Field’s overall food experience has dwindled into highway robbery without anything close to your money’s worth.

It has been disappointing.

The park feels less maintained

The ballpark itself also feels less maintained.

I have increasingly encountered dirty bathrooms with no toilet paper or paper towels. I have found broken soap dispensers. I have seen dirt and trash left around the ballpark without maintenance or cleaning staff coming through as the game continues. I am not saying every bathroom is dirty or that nobody cleans the stadium. I am saying I have noticed it more and more.

My experience at Progressive Field used to be so good that when I visited other ballparks, I would tell people how amazing Cleveland’s park was. I talked about the standing-room areas, the family-friendly atmosphere, and everything the ballpark offered kids.

Now I find myself hoping visitors do not judge Cleveland based on how parts of Progressive Field are maintained during a game.

That is a massive change from how I used to feel.

The personal experience is disappearing

The interpersonal experience inside the park is also slowly being taken away.

Grab-and-go concessions might be faster, but they do not give you much bang for your buck.

For some reason, it does not feel right to grab a plastic bottle of soda from a refrigerator and pay $8 for it. I would rather pay the same ridiculous price to have somebody pour me a fountain drink with crushed ice and hand it to me over the counter.

Yes, I understand that they may make even more money from a fountain drink. That is not my point.

There is something different about getting a fountain drink with crushed ice, drinking it through a straw, and walking around the ballpark after somebody has taken your order and served it to you.

Many of the places around the team store and terrace where people used to gather and grab concessions have been converted into grab-and-go markets. You stand in line, pull what you want from a refrigerator, scan it, tap your phone, and leave.

The Guardians have openly expanded this model. For 2026, the organization announced more self-checkout and grab-and-go areas, including the Arcade Marketplace, the Landing, Guardians Classics, and additional self-checkout inside the team store.

More and more, I see one employee controlling the line and checking identification for alcohol. Another person stands near the end in case somebody has a problem with the touchscreen.

That is the extent of the interaction.

There is no getting to know the concession worker. There is no small talk. There is barely a transaction between two human beings.

It is sterile.

People go to baseball games for a shared experience. It is the smell of popcorn, peanuts, and Cracker Jack. It is the camaraderie around the team. It is everybody yelling, “José, José, José, José.” It is talking to the ushers and hearing somebody come through the section yelling, “Hot dogs!” or “Beer here!”

That version of baseball is slowly becoming a distant memory.

A new generation may remember baseball as a wall of giant refrigerators filled with Pepsi, Gatorade, and alcoholic beverages. You grab something, scan it, tap your phone, and walk away without talking to a single person.

I understand that the world changes. I understand that businesses use technology to become more efficient.

But removing people from the experience is still removing something.

Where do the tips go?

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A couple of years ago, I learned something about the tipping system.

One of my favorite parts of going to games regularly was getting to know the ushers and concession workers. If you had season tickets, you recognized the same people. You knew where you liked to get food and who usually poured your beer. You made small talk, and if somebody treated you well, you tipped them well.

Then workers started telling me, “Stop tipping me. I don’t get those tips.”

That pissed me off.

I had been tipping people for years under the assumption that the money was going to the person standing in front of me.

I also heard the allegation that concession tips were being directed to a Guardians-related charity and then treated as charitable donations for tax purposes. I could not verify that claim, so I am not going to state it as fact.

I could not find a public, stadium-wide explanation of exactly where every touchscreen tip goes. Actual bartenders operate under different rules. You can find them at the corner bar or the terrace.

If the screen asks me to leave a tip, I should know whether that tip goes to the person helping me, a nonprofit group, the concession company, or somebody else.

People should not have to walk around the stadium questioning workers to find out.

When I visited Great American Ball Park in Cincinnati, I told my friend what workers in Cleveland had told me. She did not believe it, so we asked people working there. We were told something similar.

That is not proof of a universal policy in Cincinnati or Cleveland. It is what workers directly told us.

If people have been tipping concession workers year after year and those workers have not personally received the money, people have every right to be pissed off.

Everything is digital now

Then there is the MLB Ballpark app.

Everything is digital. Tickets are bought online and downloaded into a digital wallet. The Guardians’ own ballpark guide says tickets must be purchased digitally through the team website, Ballpark app, or phone sales.

Where do you keep your ticket stubs now?

My dad has a scrapbook filled with tickets from old games. Some are from games he took us to as kids. Others represent memories that were important enough for him to save.

We do not even have the ordinary experience of walking up to the box office, getting a printed ticket, having somebody tear it at the entrance, and then using it to find our seats.

Now you need a phone, an app, a login, an email address, and a digital ticket just to get into the ballpark.

It is convenient until your phone dies, the app logs you out, the internet does not work, or the ticket refuses to load.

Maybe it is more efficient.

But we lost something when the ticket disappeared.

There are still some positives

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One of the biggest positives at Progressive Field is that you can still bring your own food into the park. You can pack yourself a soft-sided cooler, make a sandwich, bring food, and set up shop for a ballgame.

That is one of the best perks at Progressive Field, and not enough people take advantage of it.

Someone could argue that allowing outside food is part of the reason the stadium streamlined its concession operation. If fans can bring their own meals, perhaps the team decided it needed fewer workers and a simpler food system.

I do not believe that trade-off is necessary. But allowing people to bring their own food is still a real positive, and it should be acknowledged.

P.S. Where the hell are the chopped onions?

Why has everywhere gotten rid of onions? You have Onion running in the Hot Dog Derby, but you cannot get chopped onions for an actual hot dog.

It makes my dad so mad that he brings his own onions into the park.

He brings onions from home so he can put them on the same shriveled, crappy hot dog they sell for $8.

Maybe this is nostalgia, but I do not think that is all it is

Baseball is changing.

Maybe this is just the rambling of a man in his mid-40s who feels nostalgic and wants the same feeling he had as a boy or younger man. The world is changing. Baseball is changing. People are changing. Culture is changing.

As much as I consider myself progressive, future-focused, technology-focused, and culturally tuned in, I am starting to lament some of what we have lost.

But I do not think this is only nostalgia.

I think this is enshittification.

It is cutting costs, reducing staff, making customers serve themselves, charging more for worse products, and slowly stripping the humanity out of an experience when more and more people are going out to find that human experience outside of screens and phones.

The Guardians are not an unprofitable organization. Forbes estimates that the team produced $337 million in revenue and $53 million in operating income during the 2025 season. Forbes valued the franchise at approximately $1.66 billion in 2026.

The team also entered 2026 with the lowest Opening Day 40-man payroll in Major League Baseball at approximately $75.5 million.

Meanwhile, public officials continue looking for additional taxpayer money to maintain the stadium.

There are two different sales-tax proposals in the county discussion. One would use money left over from an existing quarter-percent county sales tax after obligations for the new jail and courthouse are covered. Another proposal reportedly being drafted by County Executive Chris Ronayne would increase the county sales tax by 0.15 percentage points to create a fund for repairs at Progressive Field and Rocket Arena.

So we have a profitable baseball team cutting staff, making more of the experience self-service, overcharging for shitty products, and benefiting from repeated public spending on the stadium where it makes its money.

Then the entire region is effectively told to shut up, take what it is given, and be happy that it still has a baseball team.

I do not accept that.

What are your thoughts? Is Progressive Field a better experience than it used to be? Am I out of touch? Is this simply my nostalgia coming through?

Or do I have a point that enshittification has hit the Cleveland Guardians and Progressive Field?

Stay Angry.