What is Ohio, the new confederacy? Why do lawmakers want the state to have its own currency? Today in Ohio

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Chris Quinn (00:00.672)

After an 80 degree day Saturday, it feels like fall finally on October 20th in Northeast Ohio. It’s Today in Ohio, the news podcast discussion from Cleveland.com and the Plain Dealer. I’m Chris Quinn here with Laura Johnston, Lisa Garvin and Leila Tasi. And Lisa, who are we in Ohio? The new Confederacy? What is the reason for a bill that would have Ohio creating its own gold backed currency?

outside the US monetary system.

Lisa Garvin (00:33.331)

Yeah, this is House Bill 208, which is being introduced by Jennifer Gross, a Republican from Butler County. She wants to make gold and silver legal tender and functional currency and jokingly calls it pirate money. She says Ohio would contract with an approved bullion depository or a private company to hold the gold and silver. So what you would do is you would buy those precious metals with US dollars, convert them to precious metals, and then convert back to currency at

point of sale. Co-sponsor Reardon McLean, a Republican from Wyandotte County says it’s about choice and freedom and that precious metals hold value better than paper currency, especially during inflationary times. And it says it also responds better to financial instability. But federal tax law doesn’t recognize precious metals as currency right now. It’s treated as a collectible and as such is subject to capital gains taxes.

Now, Texas is one of several states to pass a law that would make gold and silver currency. They’re going to build their own depository, though. They’re going to build the Texas Bullion Depository, and they want to start on September 26 and have the system in place by 2027. Republican, rather, Representative Allison Russo, a Democrat from Ohio, central Ohio, says, well, Texas is going to spend about five and a half million dollars on infrastructure and administrative costs.

Our House Speaker, Matt Huffman, says it’s an intriguing idea, but he has about 100 questions.

Chris Quinn (02:04.042)

It’s not an intriguing idea. What this is to me is the Republicans in state government giving up on America. They’re acting like the American monetary system is going to collapse, so they need script. Do you think they have buckets and buckets of dry food in their basements? This is like survivalist nonsense. We have a monetary system in America. They’re presuming it’s going to collapse. They must think the road warrior days are ahead and they’re building a separate system.

This is the craziest one to come along and they’re talking about it like it’s completely reasonable. When in the history of America have we had subsets of currency other than during the Civil War when the Confederates had their own currency?

Lisa Garvin (02:48.949)

Well, this kind of hearkens back. Remember conservative commentator Glenn Beck used to say it’s about God, gold and guns. And they were pushing the sale of gold on their shows. These conservative people. I think what bothers me though, aside from all the craziness is that they want to give it to a private company, possibly. You’re like, nothing’s going to happen there.

Chris Quinn (03:06.635)

Alright.

No, this is like a Ponzi scheme. The clear sign to me, the Republicans believe America is over and they’re setting up a system to protect themselves from when that day happens. They must think the zombie apocalypse is near. This story he had on Friday, my jaw was open. He’s like, you can’t be serious. We’re going to create an Ohio currency system. Who in their right mind, given who runs Ohio today, would invest in that? Well,

Maybe Bernie Moreno, because he’s the big…

Lisa Garvin (03:40.011)

I certainly wouldn’t. And honestly, if that gold and silver isn’t in your hands, do you really own it anyway?

Chris Quinn (03:46.925)

It’s the craziest thing. I can’t believe they’re looking at us speaking with straight faces saying they’re going to create a gold based system and basically renouncing the American currency system. Way to go, Ohio. You do it again. You’re listening to Today in Ohio. Talk about the critical failings of county government. What terrible decision did Metro Health announce Friday when it

predicted it would have to make if the county followed up on diverting much needed money for mental health treatment. Layla.

Leila (04:20.495)

Well, yeah, they made good on their warning Friday. They announced that they will close their psychiatric emergency department in Cleveland Heights by the end of the year. The health system blames Cuyahoga County for pulling $4 million in annual funding to help launch a competing crisis center downtown. MetroHealth CEO says that move made the 10 bed psychiatric ER financially unsustainable in Cleveland Heights exactly the outcome she predicted when

Chris Ronane, county executive, redirected that money. But Ronane fired back on that. He said that Metro Health had already planned to shutter that unit for its own financial and operational reasons long before the county’s decision. And he insists the county’s new center will expand, not replace, local mental health care, though it’s very hard to see how fewer beds add up to more access. I don’t know how that math works.

But meanwhile, know, Metro Health’s closure is just the latest sign of the strain that they’re experiencing. They have already laid off staff, closed outpatient centers, and they face deep county funding cuts in the next two-year budget.

Chris Quinn (05:30.327)

Well, one, Ronan keeps saying that they were going to close in any way. He’s offered us zero evidence of that. I’ve talked to people. I have a list kind of stuff. Put it up or shut up. Because the head of Metro Health says absolutely not true, that they weren’t going to close it until they pulled this money. And how can he say it doesn’t replace it? It’s clearly replacing it because they’re closing down.

Leila (05:36.795)

Yeah.

Chris Quinn (05:55.509)

I don’t get this. The Metro Health is not a competing entity with the county. It’s the county hospital. Why wouldn’t you support it? And we’ve talked before, they’ve committed money they don’t have. They made the decision to commit $70 million in the future. They have no idea where it’s coming from. Whereas Metro Health could have used this support to stay solid. This is just tragic. We talked about the opening of this hospital not a year ago.

Leila (06:02.94)

right.

Chris Quinn (06:25.429)

and how wonderful it was that police would have some place to take people who were wigging out. And now it’s gone. Overnight, we didn’t even last a year.

Leila (06:34.661)

Right. So Ronane, when he came to see us at the editorial board, pointed to a mysterious board member whose identity is unknown to us and said that that person told him that the hospital was already facing the question of whether to keep this unit open. But we need to know the identity of that person. We need to know. We need to see some kind of paper trail of the conversation.

that happened internally if that’s the case because who’s telling the truth here? Ronan or MetroHealth? you know, I just, yeah, it’s…

Chris Quinn (07:10.189)

And even if that’s true, even if it wasn’t doing well, then analyze why and fortify it instead of doing something completely untried and new. None of this makes any sense to me. And I also look back when Metro Health invested in that mental health hospital, everybody saluted it because we don’t have enough mental health resources in this county. They spent a lot of money, spent a lot of time to do it.

Leila (07:21.937)

Right.

Chris Quinn (07:36.747)

And it’s like we’re abandoning them when they’re in their greatest hour of need.

Leila (07:38.47)

Yeah. Yeah, it does seem like the proper step would have been to double down on MetroHealth instead of funding a new duplicative crisis center. MetroHealth had already built the infrastructure. They hired the staff. They had proven there was demand for psychiatric emergency care. And I think strengthening that system could have expanded capacity faster and more efficiently than starting from scratch.

Chris Quinn (08:04.161)

The other thing this will do, look, there is a movement afoot to put onto the ballot next year an abolishing of the charter of county government and a return to the county commission form. And this will bolster that. They’ll say the current county form of government does not support Metro Health, which we all support. We vote for the taxes that support Metro Health every time they come up by huge margins. It’s another nail in the coffin of this government. What are they thinking?

They should be thinking about what the voters want instead of these pie in the sky legacy projects that are monuments to themselves. You’re listening to Today in Ohio. Perhaps the most serious impact of the federal government shutdown is at Cleveland’s airport where air traffic controllers feel like they are caught in the middle. Laura, what did they tell our travel editor, Susan Glazer?

Laura (08:57.055)

that they are the rope in the tug of war, that they have to work and they don’t get paid. And that means that some of them might be looking for extra jobs, which not a good idea when you’re already working some six day a week, 10 hour shifts, 60 hours a week. So we’re talking about 14,000 air traffic controllers, including 500 in Northeast Ohio that they say they’re being political pawns in this debate over how to fund the government.

Chris Quinn (09:23.191)

Well, I sent out a story this morning that 996 is the new way, the work week where you work from nine to nine, six days a week. There’s a bunch of companies on the West Coast that want this to be America’s new work work way. Maybe that’s what the air traffic controllers are going to have to do to make ends meet. It’s sad that the people who are under the most intense pressure keeping our skies safe might have to go out and drive for Uber for six hours in the night just to feed their families.

Laura (09:52.253)

Right, they’re required by law to come to work. They’ve all taken an oath. They knew this was a possibility. But and they are handing out flyers at airports to let people know to pressure their representatives to reopen the government because this is so hard on people. We are talking about three weeks of work without getting paid and it’s starting to hit everyone and it’s not fair to these workers. We’ve said that over and over again, thousands of of innocent workers just trying to do their job forced to work without being paid. you know, we’ve got

Kristi Noem apparently getting a new jet they might have to look at for the air traffic control. It makes no sense. It’s so maddening and I feel so bad for that.

Chris Quinn (10:30.989)

Actually, I’ve been hearing from people sending me emails saying, how can Donald Trump justify finding money to pay the ICE agents to continue his immigration war when such a significant safety issue exists? Shouldn’t money be found for the air traffic controllers before it’s found for ICE? Which is a very good point. You’re listening to Today in Ohio.

Laura (10:39.53)

Mm.

Laura (10:52.863)

Don’t disagree.

Chris Quinn (10:55.073)

Lisa, you get the most interesting story of the weekend. We asked last week what our juvenile justice system can do with young children charged with heinous crimes. What did reporters Lucas DePrile and David Gambino learn?

Lisa Garvin (11:09.929)

Yeah, they dug into this issue after the news last week about a nine-year-old boy and a 10-year-old girl that are charged in the attempted murder and rape of a five-year-old autistic child in Collinwood on September 13th. So they talked to Case Western Reserve University law professor Michael Benza, among others, and Benza says, are not equipped for defendants of this age in our criminal justice system, and it highlights some glaring gaps in the system that is really built for teenagers and now must handle

younger kids. So Ohio has no minimum age for prosecuting juveniles. State detention is not an option for kids under 10, but the Ohio Department of Youth Services last had an 11 year old inmate in 2020 and they haven’t had any 10 year olds in custody since at least 2015. Now what happens is when children are this young, judges have to determine if the child is competent to stand trial.

which means that they have to understand what’s happening to them. They have to understand what the legal process is doing. We also talked to University of Akron retired law professor, Jaydeen Caro. He says, you have to determine if the kid understands what’s going on. If not, the case goes away. Then they’re referred to like child welfare services, therapy, or other programs. Also the interview process. When you’re interviewing these young defendants, you have to have special crook.

protocols, have to have specially trained officers to limit the trauma and ensure that they get admissible evidence. So what happens in this situation is the trained person is in with the child and then detectives, prosecutors and others watch via a live video feed. So they want to hold down the questions and hold it down to just one interview. So yeah, this is, it’s not untraveled territory, but it’s pretty unprecedented and it seems to be getting worse.

Chris Quinn (13:03.264)

David and Lucas did a nice job getting all the different perspectives on this. The idea that even though you’re nine and 10, punishment is part of the discussion, but also that the system really is not equipped for this. And everybody we talk to struggles with what do you actually do here? Plus, there’s the victim. I mean, I was glad they paid a lot of attention to the

Lisa Garvin (13:27.957)

Mm-hmm.

Chris Quinn (13:30.462)

effort being made to help with the victim. This is unprecedented territory in many ways and it was good to see all of these people thinking about what the proper way forward is, including the prosecutor. Even Michael Malley was in there saying that this is tough stuff.

Lisa Garvin (13:50.163)

Right, because he says he has to balance public safety against, you know, traumatizing a young child or putting them in a system that will make them a lifelong criminal. So he can see both sides of the story. I think one little faclet that jumped out at me from this story is that in our juvenile justice system in Cuyahoga County, the median age of rape defendants is 14.

Chris Quinn (14:10.676)

Yeah, that jumped out at me too. was like, jeez. I mean, I would have thought that that age would go up until they’re at the top of the juvenile system, but it’s not. You’re listening to Today in Ohio. Hooray for federal judge Benita Pearson for being a humanitarian. Layla, what did Pearson do with a couple of people Donald Trump’s administration was rushing to throw out of the country?

Leila (14:34.873)

Yeah, this is definitely a story about compassion and the rule of law cutting through some political cruelty. Pearson, who is on the bench in the federal court in Youngstown, stepped in to stop the government from fast tracking the deportation of two Haitian women who legally entered the U.S. under humanitarian aid program. The Trump administration tried to toss them out anyway without due process. Pearson said,

No way. She ruled that Homeland Security had violated the women’s rights and overstepped its authority. Her order gives them full immigration court hearings instead of immediate deportation, plus humane treatment while they’re held. One woman needs surgery for hernia and the other, who’s 70, needs glasses to read her legal papers so they’re getting the care that they need. both of these women fled violence in Haiti, one survived a kidnapping attempt, the other was robbed at gunpoint.

and they feared they’d be killed if sent back. Pearson’s ruling makes clear that the US can’t just short circuit justice and due process even in politically charged cases. In her words, the public has an interest in preventing people from being wrongfully removed to places where they could face some real harm.

Chris Quinn (15:49.195)

You really are starting to see the backlash now from middle America about what Donald Trump has been doing on immigration. And you’re seeing it even in his supporters that what he’s doing is cruel. They’re going after people that have been here for a long time, that have not done anything wrong. Many who came legitimately, others who came as refugees. And he just wants a number. So he’s throwing people out without thinking about the humanitarian side.

And this is a humanitarian country. And you’re seeing it now. You’re seeing judges standing up. You’re seeing the protests we’re going to talk about in a minute that America doesn’t like what he’s doing. And he’s kind of run out the string. He’s now trying to convince people that there’s no inflation. I saw this morning, even though every index shows, yes, there is. I think he’s in a little bit of trouble, which is why he’s trying to declare war on cities. He’s hoping to create something there to take everybody’s attention away.

Leila (16:33.607)

So.

Chris Quinn (16:45.292)

Because the immigration thing is going to have to stop. We are being very cruel right

Leila (16:47.814)

Yes.

Yeah. I mean, and what he’s doing is completely indefensible, even by his supporters. His campaign promise was to target undocumented criminals and have them deported. But these are two, I mean, the one woman is 70 years old and she is documented. She was legally admitted here under a humanitarian program that Trump later ended. So the ruling in this case is a real rebuke.

of the government’s attempt to rewrite the rules midstream. So I do hope that your premonition is correct, that we are turning the corner on this and people are starting to see the light.

Chris Quinn (17:33.014)

Well, there two things. I one, I think Trump and his folks are in a bubble where they don’t really hear from real America what he did, you know, putting a crown on his head over the weekend is ridiculous. But the second thing was, and this was proven while he was campaigning, there aren’t that many illegal people in the country who are criminals. That just was a phony narrative that there was a crime wave from people who came into the country illegally. It wasn’t true. And they can’t find people then.

that are criminals who are here illegally. So they go after grandmas. I it’s just ridiculous what he has done. And again, there is the backlash. You’re listening to Today in Ohio. Laura, what did we see in Saturday’s No Kings rallies in Northeast Ohio?

Laura (18:20.797)

We saw people come out all over the place. We had more than a dozen rallies here in Northeast Ohio, 2,600 of them across the country, a big one at the free stamp in downtown Cleveland, but in places that you might not expect to see rallies against Trump, like in Strongsville, which is where we sent our photographer and reporter to focus on. But basically people saying we’re standing up for democracy and for people and against authoritarianism.

Great signs if you want to look at the photos from John Coons.

Chris Quinn (18:53.462)

Yeah, we’ve been hearing from people who are upset we didn’t cover their rally. They thought that we should be at every rally in Northeast Ohio, which of course we can’t be. We chose Strongsville because it’s pretty intensely Trump country and we wanted to see how the rally would be received there. But you saw the images here, you saw images from across the country, millions and millions and millions of people all standing up to say, I don’t like what the president is doing. I saw an interesting story this morning.

saying Republicans are reacting to this the way Democrats reacted to the Tea Party movement back in 2009 by pretending it’s not real and they’re going to be in for a big surprise in the midterms because America’s not having it. Clearly, people do not like the direction he’s taking the country in and he just keeps appealing to his fringe that he would put out a video of him in a crown flying a plane that says King Trump.

dumping some sort of brown liquid on crowds of protesters says everything about what Donald Trump thinks of America. I mean, you got to think that he’s basically defecating on the protesters. That’s disgusting. It’s a terrible image from the president of this country. And I don’t think it’s going to change anybody’s minds.

Laura (20:11.037)

I don’t think so. And I think that’s the whole point is people go to these rallies are saying this is not about blue or red. This is not about Democrat or Republican. This is about standing up for democracy, the very principles this country was created on. this country was created against kings, right? That’s the whole point. So you have moms bringing in their daughters, you have whole families coming out, showing their signs and their support. I mean,

I just, I hope everybody realizes this is the power of the people and that is the point.

Chris Quinn (20:47.102)

anybody here in Laura.

Lisa Garvin (20:48.703)

No.

Lisa Garvin (20:53.589)

But she was breaking up too.

Chris Quinn (20:54.955)

I shouldn’t have broken up the whole podcast. Larry, you there?

Laura (21:00.169)

Yeah, I know, I terrible connection, I don’t know why.

Chris Quinn (21:03.387)

All right, you’re listening to Today in Ohio. Cleveland City Council will be talking today about Justin’s Bibbs settlement with the Browns over the team’s planned move to Brook Park. And we learned an interesting detail about the settlement Friday. Lisa, are the Browns going to be at the Lakefront Stadium longer than we thought?

Lisa Garvin (21:21.297)

It is certainly possible. So this is a detail of the deal that just came to light in the last day or two. So this would allow the team to exercise their option to play in their downtown stadium through the 2030 season. If the Brook Park facility isn’t finished in time, there’s an insurance clause if there are unexpected delays on the project.

So their existing lease downtown expires at the end of the 2028 season, which would be early 2029. But the settlement agreement allows extensions through February 1st of 2031. This would be one year at a time. So agreement details are still to be determined. I guess councils kind of finally get their really good close look at it for the first time today. Things to be determined include the timetable for this $100 million in payments.

which we’re gonna get 25 mil up front and then the rest dribbled out over the next 20 years. And then, you know, making sure that the team is responsible for demolishing the old stadium.

Chris Quinn (22:22.111)

I liked Leslie Cuba’s column about this over the weekend. She took a nice look at it and questioned the opposition. She put it in a nice perspective because that’s what I’ve been wondering ever since. Look, it’s an election year. Whenever it’s an election year, city council people act like crazy people because they’re all worried they’re going to lose. And so they’re all stopping their feet and screaming. But nobody has said what they want. You keep it’s like, what are you going to get more than one hundred million dollars and what leverage?

Lisa Garvin (22:24.863)

Yes.

Chris Quinn (22:51.029)

Do you have they could go to court on the broken lease? But will they get $100 million in damages or will a jury say, well, that’s a stupid clause that they had in the lease. So it’s not really that damaging. I mean, what with all the foot stomping, what do they think they could have done better than $100 million, even if it’s over time? Have you heard the first the first inclination of what it is that they think they can get?

Lisa Garvin (23:18.067)

I think they want the Browns to stay downtown. They do. I mean, I know it’s, you know, a pipe dream, but I think that’s what they want.

Chris Quinn (23:26.495)

lot of residents don’t, though. There are people in this town that would love to get the cost of that stadium up the city books and a bunch of lakefront lovers that would love to have the stadium gone. We’ve talked about how removing that stadium from the lakefront could be a win. I still think it should be in downtown Cleveland somewhere. think Cleveland is designed, has the infrastructure for it. I just I the they’re not going to keep the Browns in that stadium.

Lisa Garvin (23:44.469)

Mm-hmm.

Chris Quinn (23:54.227)

And if that’s what they think they could have held out for, they’re wrong. And so, I don’t know, I think you’ll see a lot of grandstanding at this hearing today with very little substance.

Lisa Garvin (24:06.547)

And talking about columns, I really enjoyed Justice Hill’s column about this too, that ran on Wednesday, I believe, where he was saying, this is like the Richfield Coliseum 2.0. Let’s build, you know, a big stadium in the suburbs that we’re going to vacate in 10 years.

Chris Quinn (24:20.542)

Exactly. Well, I think it’ll be more like 30 years, but exactly. They’ll be back. You’re listening to Today in Ohio. Laura’s having tremendously bad problems today, so I’m going to cut this off here. Short episode. Thanks, Laura. Thanks, Lisa. Thanks, Leila. Thank you for being here. We’ll be back Tuesday, hopefully full of full episode talking about the news.