CLEVELAND, Ohio — When Cleveland Clinic employees receive a raise or promotion, the hospital system reduces their banked hours of paid time off.
We’re talking about this unusual practice and how it hurts employees on Today in Ohio.
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.
You can now join the conversation. Call 833-648-6329 (833-OHTODAY) if you’d like to leave a message we can play on the podcast.
Here’s what else we’re asking about today:
How might the new law banning foreign donations to Ohio political campaigns have the unintended effect of crippling the use of secret dark money in those campaigns?
The Cleveland Clinic is one of the top employers in all of Ohio, and it has one of the strangest ways of calculating vacation time we’ve ever heard of. It actually penalizes people who excel at their jobs. How does it work?
Our Legislature has never seen fit to completely abolish the corrupt House Bill 6 at the center of the state’s big bribery scheme. How much has the bill now cost us all?
Ohio’s elected leaders have been on a spending orgy in recent years, celebrating higher-than-expected revenues with enormous gifts to private schools, nursing homes and others. But the tide has turned. What is the ominous news for these big spenders?
Cuyahoga County voters will consider an increased cigarette tax for the arts on the November ballot, but we were promised 10 years ago by arts groups that by now, they’d have a new plan that does not put the onus on poor people the way the cigarette tax does. So why are we getting another cigarette tax proposal?
We have news on Cleveland’s iconic West Side Market. What are some small changes coming that might make the place more inviting.
That’s the good news. Here’s the bad. What is happening with parking at the West Side Market?
Finally, they’re still having trouble keeping the lights on in the market. What happened Friday?
Once upon a time, speed bumps were the tool cities used to slow down traffic. Today, it’s speed tables. What are they, and how many is Cleveland installing this summer to make streets safer?
What is going on with NOACA, the big regional planning agency for Northeast Ohio. After postponing consideration of a new contract for its director earlier this year, the board just gave her a brief extension. What do we know?
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Read the automated transcript below. Because it’s a computer-generated transcript, it contains many errors and misspellings.
Chris (00:01.317)
It’s another week of news on this news discussion podcast. And as with most Mondays, we’ve got some juicy stories to talk about. It’s Today in Ohio, the news podcast discussion from cleveland .com and The Plain Dealer. I’m Chris Quinn here with Lisa Garvin, Laura Johnston, and Leila Tasi. Let’s get started. How might the new law banning foreign donations to Ohio political campaigns have the unintended effect
of crippling the use of secret dark money in those campaigns. Laura, this could be a great thing.
laura (00:34.902)
It could be, this could have wide ranging implications and we’re just not really sure how careful and cautious people are going to be about the money that they provide because when you have a dark money group, you don’t know who’s giving, right? And they don’t want to be in trouble because someone they didn’t know was a green card holder gave money and all of a sudden they could be in trouble for that. And anybody could raise their hand and say, I think you need to investigate that attorney general. And they’re
supposed to investigate it. So it could have a really chilling effect on dark money overall, which I didn’t think of before. But hey, totally glad to see that. Or you could say it’s not really going to have an effect yet, because this is probably going to end up in the courts with a stay on it. And maybe this year’s cycle of elections will not be affected by it. And what’s specific to this year is the redistricting campaign. We talked about it last week, how close they are at signatures.
Lisa (01:18.862)
the six -year cycle of elections will not be affected by it. And what’s specific to this year is the redistricting campaign we talked about last week, how close they are as signatures, and there’s been a little dark -handed group called the 1630 Fund that’s giving money to Ohio last year for the 281 campaign that people think it’s going to be giving again this year. Will they? That’s the big question.
laura (01:30.006)
And there’s been a liberal dark money group called the 1630 fund that’s given money to Ohio last year for the two issue one campaigns that people think it’s going to be giving again this year. Will they? That’s a big question mark.
Chris (01:43.557)
Here’s the thing about dark money though, it’s secret. So how does the attorney general ever get probable cause to subpoena those records? It can’t just be you saying, hey, I think those guys took illegal money. You’ve got to have some kind of evidence of that before he can even go to court to get the subpoena. So I’m not sure how that works.
laura (01:46.614)
Right.
laura (02:04.662)
I know the law specifically says that any voter can file a complaint and that the Attorney General’s office must investigate all complaints it receives, which is what the Democrats were so worried about when they said, this is why we don’t want to pass this quote, poison pill. They said they weren’t against foreign money coming into Ohio. They were against the power it gave the Attorney General, but power works both ways here.
Lisa (02:22.03)
They were against the power they gave you in general.
Chris (02:26.662)
But you still have to have probable cause. I can’t just say, hey, attorney general, I think X, Y, and Z fund is taking illegal money because he’s going to have to say to me, do you have any evidence of that? I can’t go to court to get a subpoena unless I have clear evidence for a judge to sign it. Otherwise, the judge can’t sign it. We do have a constitutional right against unreasonable search and seizure, which is what that would be. It’s a fascinating.
laura (02:50.006)
Right.
Chris (02:53.605)
story because they did. They rushed this thing through, they didn’t think it through, and it has all sorts of ramifications. And as I said, when it passed, it does cut both ways. This is not just… It was odd that the Democrats were the ones screaming about it because a lot more dark money seems to flow… Well, it’s not true. I guess it’s about equal we have found in both directions. But there was a whole lot of dark money that was used in the first energy case, right?
laura (03:18.102)
Yeah, with the red China ads.
Lisa (03:18.894)
Mm.
Chris (03:20.197)
Yeah, so it’s a great story by Andrew to really dig into what the ramifications could be. It’ll be fascinating to see what Dave Yost does with it.
laura (03:29.43)
And remember, they included green card holders in this ban, which I believe the Supreme Court has found unconstitutional. So somebody could take that right away and challenge it, and this could be tied up in the courts for years.
Chris (03:42.117)
You’re listening to Today in Ohio. The Cleveland Clinic is one of the top employers in all of Ohio. And it has one of the strangest ways we’ve ever heard of, of calculating vacation time. It actually penalizes people who excel at their jobs. Lisa, how does this work?
Lisa (04:00.302)
Well, this is interesting and it is unique as far as the healthcare landscape in Northeast Ohio and probably nationally. But instead of having a paid time off bank based on hours worked, Cleveland Clinic has a dollar amount that’s assigned to workers PTO bank. So it would be their hourly pay times the number of PTO hours earned. So as their pay rate goes up,
Your PTO hours are reduced to keep the dollar value the same in the PTO bank. So let’s use an example. If you’re making $15 an hour and you have 100 PTO hours, then your PTO balance is $1 ‚500. That’s your pay time your hours earned. Now, if you have a 50 or a 2 % pay increase, which would be $15 and 30 cents an hours, that means to maintain that $1 ,500 balance,
it would be recalculated as $1 ‚500 divided by 1530. So that’s just over 98 PTO hours. You’re losing just under two hours of PTO. But this is clearly spelled out in the Cleveland Clinic PTO policy and it’s been in place since 1994. But apparently many workers were unaware, including one woman we interviewed said she didn’t even know about it until Cleveland .com talked to her about it.
And as I said, the policy is unique in the Cleveland healthcare landscape. Former Metro Health nursing head, Melissa Kine says she’s never heard of anybody else doing it. She says that Metro Health goes by the standard PTO, hours worked and not paid. So the clinic says using a dollar value for the PTO bank allows flexible ways to use that time. You can cash in up to 48 hours of unused time at 75 % of its value at the end of the calendar year.
and you can trade up to 80 hours to either offset medical benefit costs or you can donate your PTO to another employee in need like for medical leave and so forth. And they said in their statement, this has been a best practice since 1994.
Chris (05:57.381)
It’s anything but a best practice. It’s a looney tunes. All right, University Hospitals and Metro Health, you got a nursing shortage. You just got a recruiting tool. We give you vacation time that you never lose. The Cleveland Clinic, if you do a good job and get promoted, they reduce your time off. Wouldn’t that make a difference to you if you were looking for a job that they could, by excelling?
You lose days off. What’s most important to workers today?
Lisa (06:28.014)
Well, as I said, a lot of these people weren’t aware of the policy and they didn’t read the fine print. And, you know, other nurses that we talked to said, you know, they get regular pay raises to stay competitive. So over time, this policy would chip away at their PTO bank. And they say it basically means they’re getting more work out of an overworked population.
Chris (06:48.581)
Yeah, well, maybe they didn’t know it before, but they’re going to know it now. And I cannot imagine that the competitors will not use this as a recruiting tool. I’ve looked, I’ve been in the workplace for more than four decades. I’ve never heard anything like this. People get a number of days off. That’s it. That’s the way it works everywhere. This idea that you get penalized because you did a good job and got a raise is crazy. I, I’m amazed.
And then they use the words best practice. I couldn’t believe that they were that clumsy. I’ll bet there’s a whole lot of conversations taking place in the halls of the Cleveland Clinic now. You’re listening to Today in Ohio. Our legislature has never seen fit to completely abolish the corrupt House Bill 6 at the center of the state’s big bribery scheme. Leila, how much has the bill now cost us all and what’s it going to get to?
Leila (07:42.575)
man. Reporter Jake Zuckerman tells us that through 2023, the bailouts to coal plants have cost ratepayers in Ohio three hundred seven million dollars. And by the end of this year, that number will reach nearly five hundred million paid through these add on charges to monthly electric bills. And that’s because Republican legislative leaders who control the Ohio House and Senate have repeatedly rejected calls to cut the bailouts for the coal plants that came along with the corrupt HB6.
Those are guaranteed in state law until 2030, and they’re adding tens of millions of dollars a year on Ohioans bills. The Kiger Creek coal plant in Cheshire, Ohio, and the Clifty Creek coal power plant in Madison, Indiana, are projected by state regulators to cost Ohioans another $191 million in 2024 alone, about $3 of every $5 charged.
went to the largest equity owner of the plants, American Electric Power, with the rest split between co -owners, Duke Energy and AES Ohio. Without HB6, ratepayers were still bailing out these coal power plants with approval from the PUCO, but those were scheduled to end in the next year or two. HB6 guaranteed the bailouts through the end of the decade and charged it to all customers statewide. And for some reason, like you said, Chris, there is no political will to repeal these despite the fact that they’re completely tainted with corruption.
and are costing ratepayers half a million dollars a day.
Chris (09:07.653)
I know. It’s such a shock with this government. They just don’t care. They’re gerrymandered. They have super majorities. They figure we can do whatever we want. The power companies have had them in their pockets for years and years and years, as we’ve seen through all the disclosures from the first energy case. But it’s so shameful that this law remains on the books when it was bought and paid for by first energy. You’re listening to Today in Ohio.
Ohio’s elected leaders have been on a spending orgy in recent years celebrating higher than expected revenues with enormous gifts to things like private schools and nursing homes. But the tide has turned. Laura, what’s the ominous news for these profligate spenders?
laura (09:51.702)
Income tax revenues are way down. And this is before they want to abolish the state income tax, which they still have as a priority. That’s the Republicans we’re talking about. So the state took in a total of nearly $487 million less than they expected in income taxes between July of last year and the end of May of this year. That’s largely because of state income tax. And there’s this 2022 law that allows pass -through entities to withhold more taxes. So that’s…
a 5 .4 % drop in what was projected. It doesn’t help that Ohio’s economic growth has slowed. I mean, we’re doing fine basically. We announced the unemployment rate every month. I believe that’s crept up to 4%. So not huge, but it’s, and the news is not as dire as all that because we’re not spending as much money as we had projected. And that’s a lot of that is in Medicare. But I feel like there’s been so much just like throwing money at,
problems or priorities really, especially these private school vouchers, which are costing us about a billion dollars. That’s an annual cost that now they’re really going to have to think about priorities. And when it worries me, when all of those childcare ideas came up that people are going to shut it all down and say, no, now that we are not getting the money we expected, we’re not going to spend anything for the good of the people.
Chris (11:14.245)
Although unlike charter schools and private schools where it’s just flushing a billion dollars down the toilet, we have demonstrated the childcare dollars actually is an investment and we get a bigger return than we spent. That was proven up in Canada when they did it. And so that’s not the same. I mean, we are a billion dollars going to private schools. And now if things get tight, good luck telling all those parents we’re taking the money back. They’ll throw you out of office.
laura (11:24.502)
Yes.
Yes.
Chris (11:41.765)
It’s a billion of our tax dollars going to private organizations. This is what they wrought when they had all the money in the world to spend. Now they’re all talking about how they have to be much more careful about how they spend.
laura (11:53.782)
Right, but we still have the state representative Adam Matthews. He’s from Lebanon. He still wants to abolish the taxes, you know, income taxes. He says that that would generate new economic activity that would make up or surpass losses in income tax revenue through other taxes, which I think is just bananas. I mean, we have tax cuts, then we get less taxes. That’s just what happens.
Chris (12:16.421)
When you think about it too, they have so many new sources of revenue. There’s the gambling revenue, there’s the sports betting revenue, soon there’s going to be fracking revenue, understate parks, the marijuana revenue is about to start coming in. But they’ve been squandering money. You know, Republicans claim they’re the tight budget ones, but in Columbus, they’ve been squandering it left and right. And the worst abuse is the private schools. But they’re going to have a tough time now on what they cut. My bet is they cut programs to poor people.
laura (12:20.502)
Mm -hmm. There’s the fracking.
Lisa (12:23.214)
The fracking, right?
Chris (12:46.277)
because.
laura (12:46.678)
Right, because those are not lobbying them and contributing to their dark money campaign funds.
Chris (12:52.773)
You’re listening to Today in Ohio. Cuyahoga County voters will consider an increased cigarette tax for the arts on the November ballot, but we were promised 10 years ago by arts groups that by now they’d have a new plan that does not put the onus on poor people the way the cigarette tax does. So why are we getting another cigarette tax proposal, Leila?
Leila (13:09.775)
Mm -hmm.
Leila (13:14.255)
Yeah, this tax sudsets in 2027 and you’re totally right, Chris. They had promised they’d be working on finding a less regressive way to raise money for the arts in Cuyahoga County. But now not only are they asking voters to re -up the cigarette tax, but they’re increasing it from one and a half cents per cigarette to three and a half cents to make up for the fact that fewer people are smoking. So we’ll be up to 70 cents per pack. And the folks behind this plan say…
It wasn’t for lack of trying to find an alternative. They said they faced a number of roadblocks. Starting in 2016, there was a group of 15 to 20 arts leaders who held regular meetings to research and test alternative sources of taxation through polling. And county voters had already voted down the idea of a property tax for the arts in 2004. So that idea was off the table. Before turning to cigarettes in 2006, these arts advocates considered but rejected.
taxing cell phone usage, dry cleaning, car rentals, boat sales, and videotape and DVD rentals, which are of course obsolete today. And since 2015, other taxes that they’ve explored included a dine -in tax meal, alcohol sales, real estate transfers, and then they looked again at the property tax. But the cultural leaders rejected those after they got strong negative responses in their surveys that either…
those taxes were regressive or that business organizations would push back hard against any new legislation in Columbus to establish these or that they simply wouldn’t produce the income that they needed to support the arts programming. There’s some wiggle room in the county’s 8 % sales tax that could be increased by a bit, but there’s really no political interest in doing that here given that Ohio already has the highest sales tax in the state. So that’s off the table too.
And then Ohio Governor Mike DeWine signed into law legislation allowing the county to seek permission from voters to tax 9 % of the wholesale price of cigarettes and vaping products. And there’s some thought that perhaps vaping is less regressive than cigarettes, but probably not really. But at least it would replace some of the lost revenue from the recent unpopularity of cigarettes. But then just six months later, lawmakers reversed course in a budget bill that eliminated the wholesale tax on cigarettes and vaping products because…
Leila (15:35.247)
The Ohio Department of Taxation said that it lacked a mechanism to administer that tax. So that’s where they felt like they were left with no choice but to just increase the existing tax on cigarettes.
Chris (15:48.133)
One, the taxation department could figure this out. The legislature was bought and paid for by the tobacco products company. That’s why the vaping went out. Two, the upshot of this is they broke their promise. They had 10 years to figure this out. And when they came to see the editorial board, we had a meeting with them. It was kind of striking when they went through each tax that they considered and they said, yeah, but people didn’t like that. You know, we thought about boats, but yeah, but people didn’t like that.
So then just justify the means, we’re going to stick it to the people who smoke. And it just…
Leila (16:19.887)
Well, and I also want to know who are they polling? If you’re polling the rich yacht owners, yeah, they’re not going to like that. But you poll the rest of the county and I’ll vote for it. I would support that shift to using those kinds of tax revenues to support the arts. So I feel like they were they were trying to please a certain sector by staying away from taxes that would affect them directly.
Chris (16:22.725)
Yeah.
Chris (16:30.245)
Right. I…
Chris (16:41.157)
Yeah.
Yeah, and it’s the people who benefit from the arts. What’s so amazing to me is they’re peddling the same promise this time. Well, this is this will give us 10 years to figure it out. Basically, they’re saying they need 20 years to figure out how not to stick it to poor people. It’s it’s amazing. And look, the tax goes to a lot of good things, and it has had the impact of reducing smoking. And this will to.
But shame, shame, shame. They had 10 years to figure this out, but they don’t want to offend the patrons of the arts, so they’re sticking it to the poor people.
Leila (17:18.863)
And don’t you think it’s just possible that people will just be getting their cigarettes from somewhere other than Cuyahoga County?
Chris (17:25.861)
Nah, I don’t know. I mean, it’s convenience. It’ll raise the money. It’s just such a shameful failure that they could not come up with a better method of doing this. There are other things that you could do and we’re not. We’re going back to the old well. You’re listening to Today in Ohio. We have news on Cleveland’s iconic West Side Market. Lisa, what are some small changes coming that might make the place more inviting before we talk about the bad news that comes along with it?
Lisa (17:54.606)
Yeah, the new nonprofit management group, the Cleveland Public Marketing Corporation, is adding a temporary dining patio between the Produce Arcade and Market Hall. That’ll be opening in late June or early July. And then they have future plans that call for a new covered hallway between the North Arcade and Market Hall with retractable doors for good weather. But I will have to say that
Where are they going to put that patio? I think is where the dumpsters are currently located. So hopefully they’ll be moving those dumpsters somewhere else.
Chris (18:21.349)
Ha ha ha.
Lisa (18:25.006)
They’re also going to have pop -up vendors, but they don’t want these vendors to be competing directly with existing tenants. So they’re looking at other things like gifts, art, et cetera, to attract a diverse shopping clientele. And that event’s calendar is being finalized. And then finally, they’ve launched a digital newsletter called Fresh From the Market. And it lists market events, local chefs, recipes, and more. It is available now on the Westside Market homepage. And they’re also doing a deep cleaning. They got $10 million from
City Council and they hope to raise 30 to $40 million more from public and private sources to implement their full master plan. But that deep cleaning they said was long overdue.
Chris (19:06.437)
It’s nice to hear that they’re already putting in some inviting changes that might bring more people back because the place has become so, I don’t know, stale. But that was the good news. There’s the bad news. What is happening with parking at the market?
Lisa (19:22.254)
So effective last Friday, the one hour, you get the first hour free, which was always, well, we’ll get to that, but you get one hour free. It’s $1 .50 an hour after that, up to $12 maximum. Previously, you got 90 minutes for free, and then it was a dollar an hour after that for a maximum of $10.
So right now that’s gated, the gates are being removed and you’ll have to use a mobile pay system. So they’ll have a QR code on a sign as you enter and then you scan that and enter your license plate. And then you select your estimated time in the lot and your payment is based on that estimate. And if you over go there, you’re in danger of exceeding that, then you receive a text message. But I wonder if you underestimate or overestimate, you know, whether you get your money back. They didn’t say that.
Chris (20:11.429)
I think it’s odd that on the one hand, they’re putting in amenities that might make you want to stay there longer while reducing the amount of time you can park for free. It seems like they’re trying to generate some more revenue with the parking fees by holding people there longer.
Lisa (20:27.022)
Yeah, that makes sense.
Chris (20:29.029)
Finally, they’re still having some trouble keeping the lights on in the market. What happened Friday?
Lisa (20:33.358)
Yeah, the power went out for about an hour from about 1030 to 1130 a But it was part of a larger outage that ranged from the flats to West 45th streets. And it kind of put a little damper on business for a little while. Some vendors couldn’t process credit card purchases because of no power. But the market returned to getting busy that afternoon after power was put up.
put back on and Cleveland Public Power was on site to cut off the power to the market before being restored because they didn’t want any surges to, you know, make things go fluid over there. And they say they’re working in that area to put grid components underground to reduce outages in the area. The last outage the market had was April 16th, but that was storm related.
Chris (21:18.501)
I don’t know why that they’re not rushing to get backup generators because a business can’t survive if they continuously are losing power. How much would it cost, I wonder, to put in the backup generators that would keep that place humming during these frequent outages? Cleveland Public Power is not the most reliable utility out there.
Lisa (21:38.35)
Well, and they say that, you know, the people with the corporation say backup generators are being planned, but they haven’t put any estimated time of arrival for them.
Chris (21:47.365)
You know, the sooner the better. You’re listening to Today in Ohio. Once upon a time, speed bumps were the tool cities used to slow down traffic. Today, it’s something called a speed table. Laura, what is that? And how many is Cleveland installing this summer to make its streets safer?
laura (22:05.59)
So these are like speed bumps only wider so you don’t necessarily jolt over them like you do a railroad track, but you’re still forced to slow down to drive over them. And Cleveland wants to install a hundred of them this summer, mostly on local streets that see between a thousand and four thousand cars pass through them every day. The idea is to make those city streets safer by reducing speed. So, you know, pedestrians and bicyclists and the people driving are safer.
So most of the streets that get these have documented speeding issues, many in areas where there’s a history of crashes or close to schools, parks, anywhere that there’s a lot of people walking. But if you want one in your street, you can request one from City Hall.
Chris (22:48.325)
I wonder how these play with the dirt bike and three wheeler riders that have been kind of tormenting neighborhoods with their antics. They did it in a big way a few weeks ago, even setting a circle of fire under the chandelier in Playhouse Square. If they hit these, is it dangerous? If they’re going flying down the road and they hit one of these tables, are they going to be ejected? Yeah.
laura (23:09.75)
Right, it’s like a ramp, right? Like a jump on a ski hill. I hope that they don’t use that as a dirt bike park kind of a skateboard park thing. It could be dangerous, but the whole point is to make the streets safer. So my guess is they’ll probably try to avoid the streets that have these on them. They started in East 40th Street near Kinsman. They’re tackling locations in wards 11 and 15 on the West side this week.
And actually they piloted this two years ago, so they had to have some success in order to continue it. It could spend $30 million total on this with a lot of other infrastructure. It’s all ARPA money.
Chris (23:47.525)
The story didn’t say whether it’s a deterrent to those hot rodders. It would be interesting to look in other cities to see if it’s had any impact whatsoever. I’ll bet it doesn’t. I’ll bet that those hot rodders don’t really care and just ignore them. You know, listening to Today in Ohio. All right, Lalo, what’s going on with NOACA, the big regional planning agency for Northeast Ohio after they postponed considering a new contract for the director earlier this year.
The board just gave her a brief extension instead of the full extension. What do we know?
Leila (24:21.615)
Yeah, the NAWACA board of directors voted Friday to extend executive director Grace Gallucci’s contract by just six months. We don’t really know what preceded that vote because the board began its meeting with this two hour long executive session, but we do know what’s in the background of this whole matter. And that’s an anonymous letter that surfaced in January listing criticisms of Gallucci’s performance and her leadership. And the NAWACA executive committee last winter.
appointed Buckingham Doolittle, which is an Akron law firm, to investigate the claims against Galuci. And I believe that’s still in progress. So likely this short contract extension is to buy a little time until they can review the results of that investigation and make an informed decision. Galuci was appointed as NWACA’s director back in 2012. She served as deputy executive director and chief financial officer of the Chicago -based Regional Transportation Authority of Northeastern Illinois.
before she came to New Wacka and the contract renewal proposed for Galuci back in January, which failed, called for a three year extension of Galuci’s contract at her current base salary of $254 ,601 with a potential one year extension through June 30th of 2028.
Chris (25:37.861)
I was a little bit surprised at how little discussion there was of all the controversy from earlier this year. We talked a good bit about this was all based on a very anonymous letter. They claim they had dozens of former and current employees, but you had no idea. It could have just been one. And it was very spurious stuff. It was a very serious attack on her character that they took seriously. They never discussed it publicly, but it was an executive session.
but it’s now months and months later. So have they investigated this? Have they come out and found that it was completely empty claims? Were they justified claims? I just don’t understand this. This seems like a very, very half measure. Don’t they owe us an explanation? They’re doing the public’s business.
Leila (26:26.411)
Yeah, I mean, I guess what I’m reading between the lines, like I said, is that they probably either are wrapping up that investigation or are currently reviewing the results of it. And until they come to some decision, six month extension is going to give them the time they need to do that. I mean, that’s kind of what I’m getting from it. It is good to know that they didn’t speak of any matter in public that could have been defamatory.
Grace Galucci has been pretty clear that she believes that what was contained in that anonymous letter was defamation. So they’re certainly being very, very cautious about that.
Chris (27:03.013)
It was.
Chris (27:08.101)
Yeah, it was. I mean, they’ve been smart not to discuss it publicly. It’s pretty ugly stuff for somebody that’s been around for so long. They owe it to the public and they owe it to her to wrap this thing up. She did not really say anything about this, which leads you to believe that she’s okay with the progress that they’ve made and is content to wait for the six months to get an answer.
Leila (27:19.151)
Yeah.
Leila (27:28.207)
Mm -hmm.
Chris (27:31.941)
You’re listening to Today in Ohio. That’s it for the Monday episode. Thank you, Lisa. Thank you, Laura. Thank you, Leila. Thanks to everybody who listens to this podcast. We’ll be back Tuesday talking about the news.