CLEVELAND, Ohio — Gov. Mike DeWine wants gummies, candies, vape cartridges and other low-level THC products that he says are marketed to children off the shelves of Ohio’s gas stations and corner stores and into regulated marijuana dispensaries.
We’re talking about the hemp loophole that allows kids to buy THC that looks like candy on Today in Ohio.
Listen online here.
Editor Chris Quinn hosts our daily half-hour news podcast, with editorial board member Lisa Garvin, impact editor Leila Atassi and content director Laura Johnston.
You’ve been sending Chris lots of thoughts and suggestions on our from-the-newsroom text account, in which he shares what we’re thinking about at cleveland.com. You can sign up here: https://joinsubtext.com/chrisquinn.
Here’s what else we’re asking about today:
This flies in the face of what we all thought the law was, but for years plenty of Ohio vendors have been selling products laced with THC, the inebriating ingredient of marijuana. How is that possible, and what do state leaders think about it?
Was he delusional? Did he ever have a chance? He gained a lot of attention for being outrageous, but will that turn into anything down the road? What is next for Ohioan and failed presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy?
Frank LaRose must be missing all the attention he got for leading the anti-democratic and hugely unpopular move to spike our ability to alter the Ohio constitution. What’s his new attention-grabbing antic?
There’s never been a crime story like this. A guy steals nearly $2 million, is unlikely to ever be caught but then seeks justice, and redemption, for himself. An incredible tale.
About the first thing Mike DeWine brought up with us in a meeting last week is the work he’s done to help people with mental illness. On Friday, he stepped up again. What did he announce?
In his meeting with us, DeWine also made as strong a statement as we’ve heard from him about the need for childcare help in Ohio. What did he tell us?
Cleveland Mayor Justin Bibb and Cuyahoga County Executive Chris Ronayne jointly announced they are replacing the head of Gateway Development Corp., the perpetually cash-strapped agency that oversees Progressive Field and Rocket Mortgage Fieldhouse. Who got the boot, who got the job, and why is this happening?
We’ve talked a good bit about Cleveland’s landmark Greyhound bus station and what is will become, but what we still don’t know is where people will go to catch a bus when the station gets converted. What are the possibilities?
A retired major crimes prosecutor has pulled his suits out of the closet and returned to the courtroom, aiming to deal with gun violence and other major crimes in Cleveland by winning longer sentences for the criminals. What makes his role so unusual?
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Read the automated transcript below. Because it’s a computer-generated transcript, it contains many errors and misspellings.
Chris (00:01.235)
Hey, if you love food and who doesn’t, you really might give a try to our new dining podcast, Dine, Drink CLE. Josh Duke and Alex Daris host this for us. They’re, they’re just filled with energy. There’s a lot of fun. We have some great foodie experts on Cleveland Scene and Mark Bona, Pete Cicari and Paris Wolf. They all get together once a week, have a lot of laughs. It’s worth listening to. If you want to smile toward the end of your week, you can find it on
any place you download your podcast Dine Drink CLE. It’s Today in Ohio. It’s the news podcast from Cleveland.com and The Plain Dealer. It’s our news discussion analyst that we do every weekday. I’m Chris Quinn here with the normal panel of brilliant experts, Laura Johnston, Leila Tasi and Lisa Garvin. On Monday, we always have some pretty interesting stories to talk about. So let’s get to them.
Lisa (00:41.196)
in the West that we do every weekday. Because we’re in here with the normal panel of brilliant experts, bar masters, and they know how to do these things. On Monday, we publish our some pretty interesting stories to talk about, so let’s get to that. Just rise in the days of what we all thought the bar masters could bring us.
Chris (00:57.535)
This flies in the face of what we all thought the law was, but for years, plenty of Ohio vendors have been selling products laced with THC. That’s the inebriating ingredient of marijuana. Leila, how is that possible? And what are state leaders now trying to do about it years after the problem started to exist?
Leila (01:18.422)
So this is what’s known as Delta 8 THC. These products hit the scene after Congress passed the 2018 Farm Bill that let states create commercial hemp and CBD programs. The legislature created Ohio’s hemp program a year later and DeWine signed that bill. The lawmakers’ intention here was for growers cultivating plants to make twine and rope and textiles and clothing, hemp seeds that people can add to their food, and then this building material known as hempcrete.
But hemp plants and marijuana plants are the same species of the cannabis plant, of course, and delta-8-THC became kind of an unintended consequence of that law because delta-8-THC is a synthetic product made from hemp. The difference here is the level of THC. A product or plant is considered hemp if it contains a maximum of 0.3% THC on a dry weight basis. Anything above that level is considered marijuana.
as long as it remains below that THC threshold products containing Delta-8 are considered hemp. So hemp and marijuana are regulated differently in Ohio and the law is silent in Ohio on Delta-8. So we’ve seen this emergence of Delta-8 and also Delta-9 THC, which is a little more potent. And many of them are packaged into gummies or products that look a lot like candy on their packaging. And Mike DeWine is really upset about this. He asked lawmakers to take this up.
House Bill 86, which is the proposal that would enact changes to the recreational marijuana law that voters passed in November, it includes provisions moving most of Delta-8 and Delta-9 THC products out of places where teens could potentially buy them to the state’s licensed marijuana dispensaries where they would only be able to buy them if you’re 21 years old.
Chris (03:05.775)
I just was stunned by this and the idea that it’s below a certain level. I mean, if I were into this scene, you just eat more of the gummies, right? I mean, you get the same high, you just have to consume more. I’m shocked that this is legal. And Mike DeWine, when he talked to us, he says, look, we’ve looked at it every way we can. We can’t do anything about it. What surprises me here, and this is fascinating, right? The vendors of this stuff are coming out of the woodwork saying this is good for the economy.
Leila (03:14.058)
Sure, yeah, that’s kind of exactly.
Chris (03:34.875)
My bet is that the legislature won’t buy that argument here, but they have bought it for flavored cigarettes because they’re trying to force, and again, who uses flavored cigarettes? It’s mostly people of color living in the cities. It’s another example of the legislature not really caring about people in the cities, showing a bit of their racist background. They’re gonna drill this, but they’re not gonna, they’re gonna work against Mike DeWine’s veto on
Lisa (03:40.364)
they have more to play with sickles. Mm-hmm.
Chris (04:04.515)
menthol cigarettes. I don’t see how you can do to both, but does it seem like the legislature will do what the wine is asking?
Leila (04:13.222)
Well, I mean, it seems that if it’s in this House bill that’s making these changes to this, then it does seem like it’s headed that direction. What I was trying to figure out though is that is there anything restricting the sale of these items to kids at all right now or no? Because he mentioned that a 15-year-old that he was aware of bought a package of… He was holding up in the video stream of our…
editorial board, meaning a package of these gummies that he said was purchased by a 15-year-old. So I guess there’s absolutely no regulation on the age limit of people who are allowed to purchase these right now at gas stations and stuff. Is that right? Is that what you were reading on this?
Chris (04:52.607)
We need to do, yeah, that’s what I was reading. But we need to do a story that compares this to the approach to the flavored cigarettes. Because I would argue, this is probably less damaging than the cigarettes, right? The cigarettes have a direct link to cancer. It kills people. And they’re gonna get all in a huff about this, but not the cigarettes. This really is gonna put the legislature into a tight spot because it’s hypocrisy to go after one and not the other.
something we’ll have to be working on Laura. Maybe we talk to Rick Rowan down in our State House Bureau. You’re listening to Today in Ohio. Was he delusional? Did he ever have a chance? He got a lot of attention for being outrageous, but will that turn into anything down the road? Lisa, what’s next for Ohioan and failed presidential candidate, Vic Ramaswamy?
Lisa (05:42.491)
Well, he isn’t saying, but there are certainly a lot of people in Ohio and elsewhere speculating about what his future might be.
The 38 year old from Cincinnati, who was the founder of Roivant, the biotech company, has an estimated net worth of $940 million, according to Forbes, and he could be successful at running for state office in 2026 with that money. Other reasons that they listed, they say obviously name recognition, you know, with the televised presidential debates, he said a lot of crazy things.
And he definitely stood out in the debates. He does have strong communication skills. And some of the things that he said went viral. And I’m sure that was his plan all along. And again, money is a big issue. He lent his own presidential campaign $15.2 million. That was about half of his total that he raised. He also has pretty good connections here in Ohio. The Strategy Group for Media is an Ohio-based group that ran his presidential campaign. So he has a built-in…
campaign manager if he chooses to use it. And this group has extensive Ohio experience. Also, lately Republican voters seem to like, you know, political outsiders. They like to vote for those without experience. Look at JD Vance and Bernie Moreno, although he’s not elected yet. You know, and there’s also the Trump effect. But it’s unclear if he’s a serious candidate or whether he’s just building out his national brand.
Chris (07:09.299)
Yeah, I don’t know if a state office would be big enough for him. He clearly has huge aspirations. He did become cartoonish in his positions, but like you said, it got him the attention. And, and maybe that he’s young. He’s very young. He has plenty of years where he could trade on that to become more of a name brand. So maybe it was a smart move. It’s an interesting story that Andrew Tobias put together.
Lisa (07:12.864)
Right.
Lisa (07:23.605)
Mm-hmm.
Lisa (07:32.12)
Yeah, they said, you know, and as you mentioned, you know, some people we talked to said that he might be bored with being governor or attorney general of Texas, you know, because that’s basically just managing the budget, more or less.
Chris (07:43.819)
Right. Yeah, I think he has bigger aspirations. You’re listening to Today in Ohio. Frank LaRose must be missing all the attention he got for leading the anti-democratic and hugely unpopular move to spike our ability to alter the Ohio Constitution. Laura, what’s his new attention grabbing antics?
laura (08:03.179)
Well, he wants to make sure that Donald Trump is on the ballot in every state. He’s going to do everything he can to make that happen. So Colorado and Maine want to keep former president Donald Trump off of the ballots in 2024. They look at the insurrection as a reason that he can’t run. But LaRose joined this friend of the court brief that was filed Thursday by Jay Ashcroft, the Republican secretary of state in Missouri.
Republican elections officials in 10 other states, Alabama, Arkansas, Indiana, Montana, West Virginia included in there to file this brief saying, we don’t think this is legal. And they’re looking at the US Constitution. And it was an amendment added after the Civil War where it says you can disqualify a candidate based on this insurrection, which makes sense when you look at the Civil War, right? But they say that you can’t disqualify federal candidates because of this, maybe just state.
Lisa (08:57.664)
maybe just state. So when Rose says, quote, I’ll do it, can you do everything in my power to make sure the president’s stuff is on the ballot in all 50 states that voters decide their nominees? It’s amazing that you’re still talking up the Trump. You’re the new Trump champion. You’re the great president. Rose. You’re the great president.
laura (08:58.495)
So Larose says, quote, I’ll continue to do everything in my power to make sure President Trump is on the ballot in all 50 states that voters can decide their nominee.
Chris (09:07.199)
What’s amazing is he’s still sucking up to Trump, even though Trump shunned him. Trump has endorsed Bernie Moreno, not Frank Larose. So is he not realized that? He’s not gonna get Trump’s endorsement at this point. What’s the point of continuing to have your whole character in check with your sycophantic way you approach this guy?
laura (09:11.135)
That’s a good point.
laura (09:28.255)
I mean, I guess if he thinks that Trump is going to be the winner, then he wants to align himself with him. Even if he’s not going to get the endorsement, he wants to be a Trump-supporting candidate?
Chris (09:41.239)
I guess it’s, uh, I think it’s more of a, Hey, remember me? I’m still here. I’m still running. Uh, I know Bernie Moreno is on television 24 hours a day saying, I’m a Trump puppet. I’m a Trump puppet vote for me. Trump likes me.
Lisa (09:52.396)
Well, and this is getting to the part of the commercial where Trump is actually saying Bernie Marino! We love Bernie Marino, that’s right.
laura (09:52.487)
Well, and you’re forgetting the part of the commercial where Trump is actually saying Bernie Marino. And it’s like, oh, I just, yeah, we love Bernie Marino. I could go without that commercial.
Chris (10:06.288)
Yeah, well, you’re gonna see it a lot. You’re listening to Today in Ohio. I don’t think there’s ever been a crime story quite like this. A guy steals nearly $2 million, is unlikely to ever be caught, and then seeks justice and redemption for himself. Lately, an incredible tale from Adam Furies.
Leila (10:23.85)
Yeah, this guy, Raymond Betts, worked as a vault manager for ATM Solution, Inc., Branch, and Warrensville Heights. This is a company that holds cash for banks and ATMs and reloads the machines when it’s needed. Betts oversaw transporting the cash, providing information for financial audience, and keeping track of the money in the vault. So back in 2016, he noticed that his supervisors were asleep at the wheel, as he later described it.
So he waited until they left for the evening, then he would go into the vault and stuff cash into the pockets of his tactical pants. He started out with taking $1,000 and $50 bills, and then from that point, he carried out monthly thefts of between $2,000 and $5,000. And this went on for years. Once he put $300,000 in an ATM bag and hid it in his car until the end of the workday,
He eventually stole a total of nearly $2 million. And he used the money on credit card payments, attorneys, sporting events, trips, cars, and a bunch of other stuff for himself and his family. Betts covered these thefts up in a couple of ways, which I thought was kind of brilliant. He would take a bill of a higher amount and wrap it around a stack of lower denomination bills. So if someone counted the money in the vault, it looked like there was more money than there was. But then he also kind of ran this…
Ponzi scheme of a sort. He’d float money to the ATMs that the company serviced. So if an ATM company ordered up $100,000 for its machines, Betts would steal $5,000 of that. And before the ATM company could count the money, he’d take $5,000 from another order and send it to the original company. And he’d keep that cycle going. And no one was looking for him. No one was looking for this guy. No one had even realized what he had done. But he was having a crisis of conscience. He was…
even buying lottery tickets in the hope of hitting the jackpot and paying back the company one day. So he decided to turn himself in. He called an attorney and he said, help me take responsibility for this. And the attorney later set up a meeting with ETM Solutions officials and Betz confessed during two recorded meetings. And when federal prosecutors called, they quickly struck a plea deal with him that avoided grand jury proceedings.
Chris (12:39.775)
I would love to see some academics do a psychological study here on both the crime and the redemption. He’s surrounded by bozos, right? The company has no safeguards. He sees that he can start taking money with no possibility of being caught. So he starts doing it. It’s a crime of opportunity. He starts taking the money and no one notices. What does that say for this vault company that they can lose $2 million and none of their accountants notice it?
And, but he feels so guilty about it that he then tries to atone. It’s just an amazing story. And his lawyer said they never would have caught him. They never would have thought of it. And he never would have been caught absent stepping forward.
Leila (13:23.73)
I was trying to figure out did this game ever end or was it still ongoing oh through April of what last year? Is that when he turned himself in?
Chris (13:32.289)
Yeah, I think he was keeping it going and looked depressed.
Leila (13:34.678)
Because he had to. I think he was getting tired of keeping it going. And he knew that if he stopped with this, you know, floating the money to the different ATMs, then he would get caught. Eventually, he would have gotten caught. I think he’s right when he told his attorney they were going to catch me eventually. I think he was right.
Chris (13:52.379)
And the pressure of that has to be just paralyzing, you know, keeping the thing going. The mounts have gone up in the desperation of buying lottery tickets to pay it back. It’s just so interesting. How much time will he serve in prison now?
Leila (14:07.358)
They said he’s looking at about three years. He’s going to be sentenced in March. But it was interesting to hear his attorney describe his personality as just a very matter of fact guy, very normal person. They said he’s a mild mannered, regular, nice guy. He makes no excuses for what he did. He’s willing to take what he gets at sentencing. He’s just very matter of fact about it. Huh.
Chris (14:11.932)
Yeah, and that and.
Chris (14:30.427)
If I were a stockholder in the vault company, I’d be raising hell. How do you lose nearly $2 million and not know about it? That’s just a…
Leila (14:37.95)
Yes, I’m wondering if there’s some restitution involved in this. Will he have to pay back?
Chris (14:42.887)
It’ll take a long time. It’s just, that’s their business. They’re the vault company. They’re the ones that are supposed to protect the money. And they had no safeguards such that an employee could do this for the longest time and take that much money out of the system. Great story. Check it out. It’s on cleveland.com. You’re listening to Today in Ohio. About the first thing Mike DeWine brought up with us in a meeting last week.
Leila (14:46.422)
Hehehehe
Right.
Chris (15:06.319)
is the work he has done to help people with mental illness. Lisa, on Friday, he stepped up again in a big way. What did he announce?
Lisa (15:14.504)
Yeah, he announced a grant of $20 million to Ohio State University’s Wexner Medical Center for a long-term study of Ohio mental illness, drug overdose, and suicide. The study is the study on Ohio adversity and resilience, also known as SOAR. They’re looking at the biological, psychological, and social factors that help some people cope with adversity while others cannot. So this is gonna be broken down into two projects.
The first will be the Wellness Discovery Survey. They hope to reach about 15,000 Ohioans to see how certain strengths and skills help them overcome adversity and which of these skills can possibly result in new treatments. They’ve already sent out 300,000 postcards out to Ohioans, so look for that in your mail if you’re interested. The second part is a brain health study. They wanna get 3,600 people in family groups.
They want to look at factors that define the relationship, who does and doesn’t do well in that relationship and why, and they hope to use that to create personalized treatments. The principal investigator, Dr. K. Luan Fong, he’s with the OSU Psychiatry Department, he’s the chairman there. He says there has never been an effort of this scale. Ohio is a microcosm of the United States and the study results can be broadly disseminated and scaled up.
Other participating universities include Case Western Reserve, Kent, Ohio University, Central State University, and the University of Cincinnati, among others.
Chris (16:49.035)
When this story first came up, the dollar amount on the little budget line that Laura and I get was kind of blank, and we were speculating, well, it’s 20 what, 20,000? It can’t be 20 million, right? Because that would be one big study. But it is, this is a huge study, and it really does have Mike DeWine putting his money where his mouth is. He has said, I’m a big believer in tackling mental illness and mental health issues throughout the state.
This is clear evidence of that.
Lisa (17:20.42)
And I didn’t see anything in the materials and I went and looked on their website to see how long term a study this is, but they compared it to the Framingham Heart Study which went on for decades. So it looks to me like they’re going to be following people for at least 10 years if not more.
Chris (17:35.779)
Yeah, this is great. And I can’t wait to see the results. I hope I’m around to see the results. You’re listening to Today in Ohio. In his meeting with us, Dwyane also made a strong statement as strong a statement as we’ve heard from him, I believe about the need for childcare help in Ohio. Laura, that was music to your ears. What did he tell us?
laura (17:56.063)
Yeah, I didn’t even bring this up with him. I wanted to, I hadn’t had a chance yet. And the question asked was about colleges and universities in Ohio. What are they going to do when they’re faced with declining enrollment? How are they all gonna survive? And the first thing he brought up was the birth rate, which has fallen in Ohio, like it’s fallen everywhere else. And he says, we need childcare so that people who want to have kids can have kids and those kids will eventually go to Ohio colleges and universities. So he brought it up out of that. And then I did follow up and he said,
We need more resources. And obviously, Mike DeWine, we’ve criticized him a lot on this podcast for giving into the legislature on some things and not sticking up for his beliefs in every occasion. But he’s saying this is one of the areas that he disagrees with the legislature on. He wants more resources. When it came to his budget last year, he wanted to increase.
Lisa (18:49.296)
increase the threshold to get subsidies to 160% of the poverty line from 142%. Thanks to the Senate, we only went up to 145%. But I asked specifically, there are so many states, more than a dozen states, that have come up with really innovative ways to tackle this crisis using a lot of ARPA money. And I asked if we’re doing any of that. There’s no there, but he did say that we do need more resources.
laura (18:49.951)
the threshold to get subsidies to 160% of the poverty line from 142%. Thanks to the Senate, we only went up to 145%. But I asked specifically, there are so many states, more than a dozen states that have come up with really innovative ways to tackle this crisis using a lot of ARPA money. And I asked if we’re doing any of that. There’s no there there. But he did say that we do need more resources.
Chris (19:18.051)
Yeah, it seems like this has got some real momentum. And the only place that’s not moving in the same direction right now is in the legislature. DeWine was very specific. You know, he said, we asked for money for this and this and this, and we got it. The only place we didn’t get what we hoped for was childcare. But they made that ask before the Ohio Chamber of Commerce stepped up and said, hey, we’re a big believer in this too. This is needed for the employers and for the economy to thrive.
laura (19:47.571)
Yeah, I agree. I mean, everybody is saying the same thing that this is not important just for families. Sorry, it’s important not just for families, but for everyone. It’s a rising tide. It helps all boats, right? I did get one of those emails on the weekend that says, if you can’t have kids, or you can’t afford to have kids, then don’t have kids. You know, my wife stayed home for 16 years. And it’s like, that’s wonderful if that’s what you want. But it’s actually wonderful for the entire economy if both
Chris (20:05.777)
Yeah.
laura (20:15.627)
parents can work and these kids are getting really good care and a great foundation for life. So other places have realized this. Kentucky and Michigan are just two of the states that have come up with ways to put money into it, have employers put money into it, and I’ll share this burden. They’re going to be improving the quality of life for their residents. And we talk about Ohio, how they want Ohio to be a place where families come and stay and work and get educated. We’re not making it easy for people.
Lisa (20:19.978)
a great foundation for life. So other places have realized that, we talked to you in Michigan, or just two of the states that come up with ways to put money into it, have employers put money into it, and all share this burden. They’re gonna be improving the quality of life for their residents. And we talked about Ohio, and they want Ohio to be a place for families to have a day of work and get educated. We’re not making it easy for people.
Chris (20:45.555)
Well, and in states that do it right, they have a football team that continues in the NFL playoffs. And in states that do it wrong, you’re out early. Should just go Detroit Lions. Yeah, absolutely. You know, listening to Today in Ohio, Cleveland Mayor Justin Bibb and Cuyahoga County Executive Chris Ronane jointly announced they are replacing the head of Gateway Development Corporation, the perpetually cash strapped agency that oversees Progressive Field and Rocket Mortgage Fieldhouse.
laura (20:55.3)
Direct correlation there, right?
Chris (21:15.091)
Wait, who got the boot? Who got the job? And what is going on here?
Leila (21:18.578)
Well, that is the elusive part of the story is why is this happening? Ronane and Bibb announced that they’re replacing board chair Ken Silliman, who’s been there since 2017, though his term did expire in 2022. They’ve been just waiting to replace him. He’s being replaced by Virginia Benjamin, who goes by Gigi Benjamin. She’s worked as an attorney for Kalfi Halter and Griswold for several decades before retiring last year.
Ronane also nominated Bryce Sylvester and Debbie Berry to replace the county’s current representatives on the board, Ron King and Matt Carroll. Sylvester is the senior director of site strategies for Team Neo, which is a nonprofit that brings businesses to Northeast Ohio. And Berry currently works as the deputy chief of staff of integrated development for Cuyahoga County. But the really mystifying part of this story is the replacement of Ken Silliman, who by all accounts wasn’t looking to step down and…
wasn’t necessarily expecting this move. He did tell Lucas de Prilie, our reporter, that he understands that Bibb and Ronane would want to freshen up the board and that this kind of thing often does happen when new administrators take control. But Silliman is arguably one of our region’s foremost authorities on the topic of stadium financing. He self-published a book last year on this subject, and he was serving as former Mayor Frank Jackson’s chief of staff during some of them.
most turbulent stadium funding debates over Brown Stadium and what was back then Quickenloan’s Arena. He always seemed to recognize that the city was in a tight spot with its contractual obligations to these teams, but he always remained a really responsible steward of public money. So it’s kind of surprising to see him go.
Chris (22:58.119)
Ken Silliman, I’ve known Ken Silliman for a quarter century. He was in the Mike Wade administration, and then he was a key part of the Frank Jackson administration. And he’s been a consummate public servant. You would have a hard time finding many people that would criticize him. He works very hard. He’s very smart. He knows the history. When he was selected for this job, I thought, that’s a really smart move. Let’s face it, this is a terrible job, because there is no funding.
So basically your job is to take the bills for all the needs of the two stadiums and then beg and plead with the county and the city to give you money. And there are long stretches of time where there is no money. It’s not like you have a great deal of power, but what he brought to it is he understood all of the mechanisms, how it works. And he was very forthright. I just don’t get why you would want to replace somebody who wants to keep doing it. And evidently he does.
Leila (23:25.707)
right.
Lisa (23:47.976)
why you would want to replace some question. Who wants to keep doing it? I forget who he does, but who’s so talented and so knowledgeable. I’m suspicious of you, right? You’re just a good, like, bad person.
Chris (23:54.179)
who’s so talented and so knowledgeable. I’m suspicious here. You know, Justin Bibb has a big downtown waterfront scheme in the works with the big financing with the tax district. Chris Ronane needs to build a courthouse and some other things. And you just wonder, is there something going on here? Bedrock and Gilbert’s company is planning massive development, does somehow the Gateway Development Corp, which is chartered by the state,
have the ability to take a bigger role in the future. And that’s what’s going on here. That Ken might’ve said, hey, you know, we really don’t have the ability to do that. And now they might not have that obstacle.
Leila (24:36.606)
I don’t know. I mean, it’s hard to know how Ken Silliman would have factored into that, if that is indeed what they’ve got planned, except that he was the chief of staff for Frank Jackson, who was not the kind of bold thinker that Justin Bibb is showing himself to be. So maybe they think that he would stand in the way of any kind of innovative approach to using the TIF money. I don’t know. But we, I mean, of course, this is all conjecture. We don’t really know at all.
Chris (25:03.411)
We’re going to figure it out. A gateway was originally created to be something bigger than it was. I have figured that out. The downtown development group that Justin Bibb created, not state charter like gateway is. So look, the disturbing quote of all of this that we’ve seen so far was Ken Silliman saying, well, there’s a new mayor, there’s a new county executive, so it’s not surprising they wanna go in a new direction. What?
Lisa (25:18.812)
Look, the disturbing quote of all of them so far was Ken Silverman saying, but the others are being nervous because they’re so surprised they want to go in a new direction. What new direction? It’s a cash-out thing. It doesn’t have much to do with cash.
Leila (25:20.875)
Yeah.
Chris (25:29.647)
New direction. It’s a cash strapped agency that doesn’t have much ability to do anything. What are we talking about here?
Leila (25:35.838)
Well, then there was also the there was a quote from Kelly Woodard, the county spokeswoman who said that she’s that the county is confident that the nominees will bring a fresh perspective to the board and will continue to further Gateway’s mission of building downtown Cleveland into a vibrant commercial entertainment and residential neighborhood, which does kind of suggest a broader goal for Gateway than simply administering syntax money for.
for stadium upgrades, you know what I mean? So I hear what you’re saying.
Chris (26:06.675)
Right. So what? Yeah, we need to hear from Ronane and Bibb on exactly what they’ve got in there, up their sleeve on this. Interesting story. You’re listening to Today in Ohio. We’ve talked a good bit about Cleveland’s landmark Greyhound bus station and what it will become when it’s redeveloped. What we still don’t know is where will people go to catch a bus when the station gets converted? Lisa, what are the possibilities and they don’t seem very good?
Lisa (26:18.428)
No safety today in Ohio. We talked at the door about the
Lisa (26:35.666)
Well, actually, I learned more from that article about the Greyhound station and its future than I’ve ever known before, and I’m a pretty close reader of the paper. But anyway, so Greyhound was bought by Flick’s Bus in 2021, and there was no business model for station operation or maintenance, so they didn’t buy that station at 14th and Chester, which is a 1940s-era building.
just a beautiful building. I think they call it Streamline Modern or whatever. But anyway, so the RTA is offering Greyhound and Barron’s Bus, which also needs the terminal, two options. Like you said, none of them really good. One of them is the Puritus Rapid Station at West 150th and I-71. The other is the Stephanie Tubbs Jones Transit Center at East 22nd and Prospect. Many people on City Council
They say there’s not enough infrastructure. It’s also well out of the downtown area. So I don’t know exactly, you know, what’s going to happen here, but you know, a lot of since Greyhound was bought by this new company, other cities are dealing with this as well. So Cincinnati, they moved their station from downtown to Arlington Heights off I-75 and all they have is a trailer with a small waiting room and a couple of restrooms.
In Columbus, their bus station was moved from downtown to a former gas station on the west side that apparently is in litigation because of crime and other issues at that area. So, yeah, I don’t, neither of them sound good to me.
Chris (28:09.443)
Well, the Tubbs Jones Center is a bus depot, but you do need some level of parking. If you’re taking somebody to the bus station, especially somebody that might be older, you need to park somewhere so that you can walk them in and help them deal with their bags or whatever. And there really isn’t any place there to park. So that’s a terrible choice. Ultimately, I guess we’re looking at a transportation hub. If we ever develop.
the waterfront and the train station and everything, and hopefully the bus would be part of that. But for now, it seems like we’re just kicking bus riders to the curb.
Lisa (28:37.076)
Right.
Lisa (28:46.133)
Yeah, and that proposed transit center near the Amtrak station is years in the future, so nothing’s going to happen really fast. But apparently in Atlanta, Georgia, Greyhound got state and federal money to open a new terminal there last year, and it’s near public transit, and it’s used by other bus lines. So we might have to think outside of the box on this.
Chris (29:06.887)
And do you like what you’re seeing about the redevelopment of the station itself?
Lisa (29:11.144)
Well, it’s interesting. Councilman Kerry McCormick, it’s in his district, and he said he would like a vibrant mixed use development. He says that area is lacking in street activity. Playhouse Square and the Playhouse Square Foundation are very interested in the building’s future. It’s right in their backyard. They’re not in the process of buying it, but they said that they have an interest in making sure that building ends up in good hands, and those hands could be ours, meaning Playhouse Square.
Chris (29:38.307)
Another story worth reading by Susan Glaser. You’re listening to Today in Ohio. That’s it for the Monday episode. Thank you, Laura. Thank you, Ava. Thank you, Lisa. And thanks you to everyone who listens to this podcast.