Columbus and Franklin County offer up big bucks to bring a National Women’s Soccer League team to town, but not everyone is happy with the deal.
What did we learn from the final report on Ted Carter’s hasty departure from Ohio State University?
Ohio’s nursing homes are increasingly discharging patients to homeless shelters. Why is that?
A primary election is days away. Early voting continues as campaign ads and rhetoric heat up. Polling shows key races are close and votes cast for one Republican longshot candidate for governor won’t count.
Plus, the push to abolish property taxes: where things stand as opponents join forces.
We're talking about all of these key issues on this week's Reporter Roundtable.
Guests:
- Mark Ferenchik, news director, WOSU Public Media
- Haley BeMiller, state government and politics reporter, The Columbus Dispatch
- Jake Zuckerman, reporter, Signal Ohio
- Susan Tebben, reporter, Ohio Capital Journal
Transcript
This transcript is generated with AI. To ensure its accuracy, review the audio file.
Amy Juravich: Welcome to the All Sides Reporter Roundtable, an hour where we catch up on the political news of last week and preview the week ahead.
I'm your host Amy Juravich. Before we turn our attention to state house news, we wanted to catch up with the latest news with a couple of big stories. We will get to the final report on Ted Carter's hasty departure from Ohio State University. But first is this.
I am really excited to officially share that Team 18 in the NWSL will be right here. That's Jessica Berman, Commissioner of the National Women's Soccer League in Columbus last week. And while the announcement generated its share of excitement, the deal wasn't without controversy.
Here to catch us up is WOSU's News Director Mark Ferenchik. Welcome back to the show, Mark. Hey Amy. So first, let's talk about Columbus getting this national women's soccer team in 2028. That's big news. I mean, women's Soccer is growing rapidly. The word controversial has come up in talking about this. But Columbus getting the team is not the controversial part, right? This is a boost for the city, right?
Mark Ferenchik: You're correct. I think there's a lot of support for this certainly in the community. The commissioner mentioned about, you know, the strong market here. So it makes sense that a team would be placed here. It's a growing city.
It is a growing metro area. I would think that the way they're looking at it too is they can draw from other markets in Ohio including Cincinnati, Dayton, Cleveland, even Pittsburgh as far away as that is. So, it makes sense to have a centrally located team here. In a growing market, but there are other reasons that they chose Columbus too.
Juravich: Well, and so that gets us to the controversial part because it's money and it's location. Jimmy and Dee Haslam, the majority owners of the Columbus Crew and the Cleveland Browns, asked Columbus City Council and Franklin County Commissioners to put public money, $25 million each into this project. And they want a new training facility at McCoy Park on the southwest side. What was the reaction to both the public money piece and involving McCoy part.
Ferenchik: Well, people, a number of people are upset about it. They wonder why a family, again, as well to do as the Haslam's billionaire family needs public money to pay for a training facility. Also, people were upset because the city had promised to do improvements to McCoy Park, which is in the southwest part of the city, south of Franklin, near I-71, one of the most distressed parts of the City too.
They don't have a lot of public space there. People are wondering, why do you need McCoy Park for this training center? So the city did a couple of things. They have a, again, they implemented a 2% ticket tax on all events at Cruz Stadium to help pay off the city's $25 million contribution to this.
They also said that they're going to create new park amenities for that part of the town. The Haslunds and their other owner parts of the ownership group have promised $3 million towards that effort, as well as the county commissioners, promising $12 million, a million dollars a year over 12 years to pay for early education initiatives, to try to deal with food insecurity in an area of that kind of thing.
So those things have happened to try smooth the way for this to happen. And again. A week ago tonight, City Council passed legislation towards this. Tuesday morning, county commissioners passed their legislation, $50 million total. And then Tuesday afternoon, there's the announcement that Columbus is getting the 18th team in the NWSL.
Juravich: Yeah. So the timing was very interesting because City Council, it basically seemed like City Council had to pass this. Franklin County had to passed this because the woman from the soccer league was coming to town. Correct.
Ferenchik: Correct. So that seemed like, I mean, frankly, it seemed like everything was lined up. Otherwise, they wouldn't have had that video ready to go Tuesday afternoon. They had everybody there. They have the event lined up to take place at Scott's Miracle Grow Field. So they had all their ducks in a row to make this happen.
Juravich: They had all their ducks in a row once they wrangled some of the once they wrangled. Some of the ducks. Yes. Yes, for lack of a better way to say it. But it was basically like, City Council, there were members of City Council who did not want to approve this. They did not. They want they asked why of all pieces of land and all the city why this piece, right? One of the residents of the area, Jennifer Creighton spoke to WOSU morning edition host Stu Osborne about what McCoy Park means to her.
Jennifer Creighton: It really hits close to home for me personally, because it gave me an opportunity for my husband, who is a disabled veteran, to be able to play with his children again. We don't have those kinds of spaces on the south and the west side, and so this park was pivotal. And they broke that promise, and now they're telling us, oh, just wait, we'll find you something. They've been doing that to us for decades.
Juravich: And what she's referring to is they spent about $900,000 designing what McCoy Park would look like. They had a plan.
Ferenchik: Correct. And so, right, people are upset because they had a plan for McCoy Park. It had been promised and then all of a sudden it wasn't. Was there any other potential sites that they could have looked at? Again, just driving by Cooper Stadium this past weekend and seeing what, I mean, still is a mess there.
Now, that's privately owned. And I looked at the author's website and that 40 plus acres there, the author values that at three million dollars basically. Now again, that's evaluation. I don't know what the owners would charge in terms of selling that property, but I just wonder how many other sites the ownership group, which includes nationwide, and the city looked at to try to make this soccer deal happen because they need a training facility.
Um, and yeah, if I were, again, a number of people in the neighborhood, Franklinton Area Commission, Southwest Area Commission have concerns over how this happened. And apparently, um, according to the legislation that city council passed last week, uh, they basically have to have a plan in place by the end of this year and something going on by next year in terms of making the area whole in terms of, of park, uh what they're going to do with the parks down there.
Juravich: Yeah, the city council basically gave the mayor's office an ultimatum saying they have 60 days to find a new park spot and they better move fast.
Ferenchik: Correct, right.
Juravich: So this so I guess just to end on this project and how it unfolded kind of highlighted some friction between the mayor and Columbus City Council. I mean, what's your assessment of that?
Ferenchik: Um, well, it'll be an interesting, could be an interesting mayor's race next year.
Speaker 5: Yeah, that's part of it.
Ferenchik: You know, Columbus City Council hears from constituents and they bring their concerns and three of the council members had some various concerns about how this was going to happen and whether this was necessary to use dedicated park space, city park space for basically a private entity. And so obviously they're hearing from people who live in the area who have concerns about how this was gonna happen and why it was gonna happened. We'll see if they're made whole. We'll how this plays out, what other land is available in that area of town to provide good park space for people who live in that are.
Juravich: Yeah, we'll check in in 60 days, I guess.
Ferenchik: We'll check in.
Juravich: All right, we'll leave it there for now, and you can continue to follow the latest developments related to the new women's soccer franchise coming to Columbus with WOSU News.
You're listening to All Sides Weekly Reporter Roundtable on 89.7 NPR News. We're talking with WOSU News director Mark Ferenchik and we're talking about two big stories that happened last week. We just talked about Columbus getting a national women's football team franchise, and then there was also the Ohio State investigation into former president Ted Carter.
So. The investigation, it was the other big story that landed. Ohio State issued its final report investigating the actions that led to former president Ted Carter resigning. It was a 47 page report. It contained new details about Carter's relationship with podcaster, Chrysanthe Vlachos. And it talks about how far he went to promote her. He tried to get her a university job. He introduced her to influential contacts, both inside and outside the university. This went beyond just appearing on a podcast. So Mark, what what's the biggest thing you learned from this report out of Ohio State?
Ferenchik: Well, again, I think you lay it out right there, just the extent that Ted Carter, what he did to try to get her, not only this podcast going up and going, but also, you know, employment opportunities with the university, trying to get financing for this project, helping her son, you know taking.
Juravich: He helped your son get into the Naval Academy, is that right? No, not the Naval academy, just trying to help him.
Ferenchik: With his naval ambitions, not naval, yeah. But I think that's the thing that stood out to me the most with the report is just the extent. Again, he is the president of Ohio State University. He is spending a lot of time and also trying to enlist other people within the university and also outside the university, including Jobs Ohio and Anderil and going to various conferences around the country to try to help her out in some way. And I think just the extent of that was a thing that stood out to me. And also, again, trying to enlist people at the university to help with those ambitions, basically.
Juravich: One detail that emerged was that Carter met Vlachos when he was president of the University of Nebraska. So she moved here when he moved here, basically. Do we know what is happening at Nebraska? Was there similar conduct there?
Ferenchik: So the report says that it appears that they met for the first time in 2023 at a conference in Washington D.C. When he was still at the University of Nebraska. So after this report came out, the University in Nebraska says, well, we're going to take a look at things now, too, to see, I would think, if there was anything that they should be concerned about with this relationship while he was president during this last year of his presidency at Nebraska.
Juravich: Yeah, so Nebraska is opening up its own investigation looking into it and Ohio State did Ohio State basically say they consider it closed now that they released this report or let or.
Ferenchik: What happened? It seems like it is closed. I mean, they made a number of recommendations, you know, that. You know, they're going to maintain the processes in the president's office and independence of the board office and reviewing travel and expenditure requests.
One of the things the report says is that no university money apparently was given to her for anything. She did have a contract with WOSU to record her podcast here in our studios, but the contract was a legitimate contract. It was for $93,000. For 50 podcast episodes, a few were produced, but the report says that that was a legitimate contract, that was real contract.
But again, Ted Carter also tried to recruit the communications office to help her out. Went to Jobs Ohio to try to help out with financing for an app that she wanted to develop to link veterans with job training and with jobs that most people said. This really couldn't be done, but they really pursued this to a large extent.
And again, that's the thing that keeps coming back to me when I look at this report is the extent that the efforts that he made consistently over a couple of years to try to help her out with her podcast and also to get this app that she wanted to get going. And again the extent of the report is interesting too. They talk to sixty people. Including 12 people who don't even work for Ohio State to try to figure out what happened. And because he kept a lot of this separate, all these efforts, it wasn't until they put this report together to figure the extent of his efforts here.
Juravich: But they did not talk with Ted Carter.
Ferenchik: They did not talk with Ted Carter and they did not talk with Chrysanthe Vlachos even though they asked to talk to them and they both said no.
Juravich: And just to reiterate, the WOSU was a part of this story, but it was determined in this report that WOSU saw recording this podcast as a revenue-generating situation. And so basically WOSU has no misconduct. They had a legit contract. She paid for the podcast that she recorded here.
Ferenchik: Yes, she paid for the podcast that she did record here. Ted Carter, at least according to the report, did not make a specific request to us and other people within the university, including, no, I'm sorry.
Juravich: Yeah, Chris Gaborik Chris. Yes. Well that so Chris Gaborik was the last part of this that I want to talk about So basically the report also outlines that for the most part the checks and balances that exist with the university where people were questioning Whether they should do what they should in as far as favors go A lot of staff members basically questioned it. They were like, why am I doing this? Why are you asking me to help this woman, right? There was lots of instances of that with everyone except for Chris Gaborik.
Um, Chris Gaborik resigned from OSU before the report came out. He served as a senior vice president of administration and planning. He was also a special advisor to president Carter. Um, but basically it seems like in the report, most people kind of question things except for Chris Gaborik. Is that right?
Ferenchik: Correct. It seems like Chris Gaborik was the go-between. He was the one who, again, assisted Ted Carter in efforts to try to help her. He is the one specifically keyed in this report as being one person within the university who really tried to help him.
And again, He followed Ted Carter here from Nebraska. And then again, he recently resigned to take a job with the West Virginia University as their chief financial officer. So, but there was, again, there was other questioning within the university and within staff about the nature of this and the nature their relationship. But Chris Gaborik is the one who really helped try to make efforts, including like taking a red-eye flight back from the West Coast to make the Jobs Ohio meeting. That Ted Carter went to for 10 minutes to try to, again, help her out with Jobs Ohio.
Juravich: Hmm. And have we heard anything from West Virginia University? They hired Chris Gaborik before this report came out.
Ferenchik: I'm not aware of anything yet. Yeah, we'll see.
Juravich: We'll add the yet. All right. We've been talking with WOSU News director Mark Ferenchik. Thank you so much for your time this morning, Mark. Thank you. And coming up, we're going to talk with about statehouse news. The May 5th primary is coming up and we'll talk about where things stand with voting and some key primary races. When the reporter roundtable from All Sides continues on 89.7 NPR News.
You're listening to All Sides in the Weekly Reporter Roundtable, an hour where we talk all things Ohio politics. I'm your host Amy Juravich. Joining us on the roundtable this week, we have Haley BeMiller, state government and politics reporter for the Columbus Dispatch. Welcome back, Haley.
Haley BeMiller: Happy Monday.
Juravich: And Susan Tebben, reporter for the Ohio Capital Journal. Welcome back, Susan. Hi, thanks. And Jake Zuckerman, reporter for Signal Ohio, welcome back, Jake.
Jake Zuckerman: Thank you for having me on.
Juravich: And this just in literally this just happened before we went on the air. The US Supreme Court has decided it will not overturn the bribery conviction for former Ohio House Speaker Larry Householder. Whoever wants to take this, since it just happened, you know, the significance of this decision, you don't where are we at with Householder and GOP Chair Matt Borges and what did what were they asking the Ohio Supreme Court to do? Do you want to take that, Jay?
Zuckerman: Well, yeah, sure. They were asking for vacations of their convictions, really. You know, they went through, I'd say this is somewhat predictable in that they went to the Sixth Circuit, they made their arguments. The Sixth circuit, a pretty reliable, reliably conservative circuit. Rejected their arguments.
So this was oh and any case getting to the Supreme Court is always gonna be a stretch But they were really being in the First Amendment drum that this stuff comes back to like like it or not This is politics. This is legitimate campaign spending Matt Borges's arguments were a little more nuanced But I think the evidence against him was a lot more clean cut You know, there was a video and audio of a check being slid across the table for private information it was a little bit more clear cut but Yeah, I think this is, I mean, largely the end of the road on the federal, in fact, it is the end of the Road on the Federal Charges.
There are state charges outstanding against Larry Householder. He has a trial date set for this summer. And now if there's going to be anything that happens at the Federal charges, it would come through Donald Trump and the U.S. Pardon office.
Juravich: Yeah, Haley. So going all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, was this the final thing for him to try besides asking the president for a pardon?
BeMiller: Yeah, he really does not have another outlet in terms of the federal charges. And, you know, the pardon piece of this is interesting because former Cincinnati Senate city council member PG Sittenfeld was convicted on bribery charges and was able to secure a pardon from the Trump administration.
So you have to wonder if householders, attorneys looked at that and were hopeful about their chances. But... I at least have not heard anything on the part in front, you know, it's possible they'll lobby for that a little more aggressively now that they know the Supreme Court is not an option. But as Jake said, there's a whole other saga at the state level related to this too that presumably a householder is going to keep fighting. And so he, you know, well, I'm sure.
Juravich: Fighting this as long as you can. All right. Well, we can leave that there for now since this just came out. We haven't really had time to digest it. But is there anything to add about Householder US Supreme Court
Zuckerman: I'd add here that the state the idea of a pardon could be entirely mooted if he's convicted in the state charges Donald Trump cannot pardon a state offense. So yeah, you'd have I don't want to get I'm not in Donald Trump's head No one is but you'd think that before you take all the the bullets you'd get for pardoning someone who was convicted by a jury You'd want to at least be sure well I'm, not gonna pardon them take all those bullets and then they're gonna go to jail anyways and still be functionally in a Similar position. So just another variable out there
Juravich: All right. Well, we'll stay tuned, as always, with Larry Householder. I wanted to pivot to the May 5th primary. Secretary of State Frank LaRose is back from his deployment with the Ohio National Guard just in time. WOSU's Karen Kassler interviewed him last week, and he said he was in Eastern Europe training foreign counterparts as Army Green Berets.
In the interview, he defended his turning over of Ohio data to the Trump administration. He also said that he liked Ohio's system of voting with a mix of early voting, in-person voting, and absentee voting. So Haley, like LaRose is basically saying that he likes the no excuse absenteeing voting and that goes against some of the current proposals out of the Trump administration, right?
BeMiller: Yeah, it's interesting, you know, Trump is very opposed to mail-in voting, wants to restrict absentee voting, and you're even starting to hear some of that from the Republican candidates running for Secretary of State to replace LaRose treasurer, Robert Sprague, and Marcelle Strips will be on the May primary ballot, and, you're seeing some murmurs from them, kind of. Echoing what the Trump administration is saying, because it is a primary, I'm sure. And they're trying to appeal to all sorts of Republican voters.
But, you know, LaRose is largely in lockstep with the Trump administration, but there are moments like this where, you know, he always defends Ohio's elections as secure and reliable. And when you have the president casting doubt on some of the that Ohio is doing. You know, puts him in a slightly awkward spot as a Republican secretary of state.
Juravich: And Susan LaRose defended in this interview, he defended his turning over of Ohio voter data to the Trump administration. It's drawn criticism, the Ohio Democratic Party chair Kathleen Clyde called it an egregious abuse of power. Basically, the one of the bills before that the Trump Administration is putting forward, tell states they have to turn over the data, but LaRose kind of just did it on his own, right?
Tebben: Yeah, it's kind of like what Haley was saying about how he agrees that the state's very vigilant and they believe things, but also that there should be extra measures. In the same way, he's saying that the federal government has these powers to look at these things like mail-in ballots, but the state still controls the elections and still controls how they work. It's just a matter of, you know, threading that needle, I guess.
BeMiller: It's worth remembering too, and it's hard to say for sure how much of a consideration this was for LaRose, but the federal government was more or less threatening to sue Ohio if they did not turn over this information last year. So I'm sure that was a piece of it. But as you noted, there are legal fights on the other side of this. Know, states are suing to keep this information because the Trump administration has asked for unredacted voter data, and that goes further than many other states think.
Juravich: That they need to provide. Pivoting to election season, campaigns are beginning to populate the airwaves. Candidates are popping up everywhere. Jake, your colleague Andrew Tobias reported that National House Democrats have their sights set on two Ohio Trump-leaning districts. It's the district of Mike Turner in Dayton and Mike Carey of Columbus. Why are these considered valuable places?
Zuckerman: Yeah, I mean, I think that it reflects a very bullish attitude from Democrats. Those are I wish I had their election returns in front of me. But those were, I don't know, put somewhere in the market of plus 10 Republican seats. So the fact that Democrats aren't just, you know, you look at like seats like Greg Lansman in the Cincinnati area or mercy captor, though they're not just playing defense. I mean they they they want scalps. They think that this election environment is friendly enough that.
You know, what are you talking? So if it's like an R plus 10 district just by political affiliation, they think that people are so mad about Donald Trump that they're going to wipe out a double-digit advantage. I don't know if they're right or wrong, but I think it just reflects a very bullish attitude coming out of the National Democratic Party.
Juravich: What else has been catching everyone's attention? I did want to talk a little bit about the governor's race because it seems like things are escalating quickly there. Vivek Ramaswamy was at a Turning Point USA event on Ohio State's campus last week. About 900 people turned out. Did anyone cover that or did you just read about it? No? Yeah. Read with interest. Read with interest, okay.
So basically Vivek Ramaswamy talked to this Turning USA event, and then Amy Acton's campaign continues to churn out. Daily updates, so many emails. She's raised over $10 million, which is a record for a Democratic candidate. So lately, Amy Acton has been highlighting endorsements. She picked up the Dayton Building and Construction Trade Council endorsement, which is break from the statewide chapter, the statewide chapters endorse Ramaswamy. Can you talk to me about the significance of these endorsements? Because I feel like there's emails coming from both campaigns talking about endorsements, do people pay attention to that, Susan?
Tebben: Yeah, I mean, it depends on the person, obviously, but, you know, it points to what they're always looking at, which is the values of the candidate and whether you support labor unions or whether you support the fraternal order of police. All of that stuff matters to people in terms of if they were former police or if they worked in a labor union, if they're, you now, a coal miner or whoever. You know, all of that points to their value system is as a candidate. So if you get an endorsement from a group that's who is, um, voters are supporting, then that means a lot to a lot of people in terms of, you know, what this candidate is going to do for them.
BeMiller: I think for Ramaswamy to rolling out these endorsements, especially as we approach the primary is I think he's trying to show that there are a lot of folks behind his campaign that he has a coalition that he's continuing to build because he is facing a primary challenge on May 5th. And you know, there is a vocal minority of people who do not like Ramaswamy. You know, he was criticized for his response on data centers, for example, at that turning point, USA event last week. So I think for Ramaswamy, and we've seen the Ohio Republican party do this too, because they endorsed him so early. They're trying to really show that there is this coalition around him as he tries to fend off these.
Juravich: Challenges. I wanted to get your take on a comment from Bowling Green State University political science professor David Jackson. He spoke with WOSU Stu Osborne and it was about some polling that Bowling Green had a new poll out. Basically the poll confirmed that the race between Ramaswamy and Acton is neck-and-neck right now and the two won't even square off until November and it's already neck-and-neck. And here is professor David Jackson talking about the support the poll found for another Republican candidate in the primary, Casey Putsch.
David Jackson: When questioned about what they plan to do if their preferred candidate doesn't win the nomination, there is a significant number of them who say they will either write in Putsch or stay home.
Juravich: So, yeah, Jake, what do you make of the fact that this poll is showing them virtually tied, but then there is this division of the Republican Party who says that they won't vote for Ramaswamy?
Zuckerman: Yeah, I mean, a little, little skeptical of that. There's always someone who's against the top of the ticket and some crowd of people who are gonna pledge to some kind of write-in campaign. My general belief is chickens always come home to roost.
As far as the even race, you know, I just, I thought there was kind of a tell if you look at the most competitive primary out there is arguably the secretary, the Democrat secretary of state's primary. Alison Russo, who is minority leader in the Ohio house, Brian Hambly is a political outsider. He was an oncologist. Very few people are familiar with either of those two people, which just tells me there's only so much political engagement.
You know, like our elections process has gotten long, every cycle seems to get longer. Like somehow we're already talking about 2028 and 2032 and 2036 elections for reasons. Oh, don't.
Juravich: Don't do that
Zuckerman: That are just completely beyond me. I think that people's opinions at this point are very malleable if they exist at all I think the people haven't been seek, you know I mean if you're if you can see wondering who to vote for you're not really thinking about the general you have one Question in front of you and I think for the overwhelming amount of their overwhelming amount Ohioans It's gonna be Amy Acton or Vivek Ramaswamy in May. So I just I wouldn't say that the polling is wrong per se I just You're pulling a question that I don't think people have put a lot of thought into, and I think that what we're trying to see is these two candidates shape that thought.
Tebben: And I would say what's interesting about that polling is that it's talking about Democrats being more motivated to vote. It also said Republicans are too, but I mean, I feel like candidates should take that as motivation themselves to be able to have that extra push to get out there because we do have, I mean Alison Russo was the minority leader in the House and she ran against Mike Carey.
So she has some name recognition. But at the same time, Democrats have had trouble in the past with getting out there and getting the push that they need to get over the past, especially with the districts drawn as they are heavily favoring Republicans. So it's hard out there, but also if voters are motivated, that should be a sign that you should be out there just pushing, trying to get anything you can out there.
Juravich: Basically, back to this Casey Putsch thing though, he's controversial, Susan. Your colleague, Morgan Trow wrote a piece that had a caution on it. Like she put a caution on the story that said, caution, some may find the language in this report to be offensive. So tell us about, you know, I don't know, you don't have to talk about the offensive language, but just tell us about him running as a candidate and how he is trying to make his name known by saying very controversial things.
Tebben: I mean, it's not honestly as weird as, especially in this election season, it seems like you see Elliott Forehand on the other side of things saying things like, I'm going to kill Donald Trump. He obviously has said he means he's going to prosecute Donald Trump and get the death penalty. But there is that element of candidates saying things that are seemingly controversial. And it's being a play to get to a certain element of the voters and trying to get a certain side, and they think that that's going to work to build up a base.
Juravich: You're listening to All Sides in the Weekly Reporter Roundtable on 89.7 NPR News. We're talking with Susan Tebben, reporter for the Ohio Capital Journal, Jake Zuckerman from Signal Ohio, and Haley BeMiller from the Columbus Dispatch.
I wanted you to weigh in on the other Republican gubernatorial candidate, because it is, well, it was a three-way primary. But now, votes cast for candidate Heather Hill of Morgan County won't count, because her running mate, Stuart Motes, filed to get off the ticket. Do we know why Motes wanted to remove himself from the ticket, Haley?
BeMiller: There have been a lot of allegations flying between Hill and Motes. You know, she accused him of using racial slurs. He's accused her of other things. And I think, you know, he just decided that he didn't want to continue supporting her campaign. And it's been this really interesting end fighting happening involving a candidate that not a lot people have heard of.
I mean, as you said, Casey Putsch has been getting some attention because he has said a lot really controversial and even racist things on the campaign trail. But, you know, Heather Hill's campaign had been a little quieter up until kind of this fallout between her and her running mate. And so now, you now, any votes for her in the primary are not going to count, which I believe she is trying to challenge. But you know at this point it's probably semantics. She was a long shot candidate to begin with.
Juravich: Yeah, Jake, I learned something new about Ohio election law. So if your running mate pulls his or her name away, the votes for you don't count. Did we know that? Aye.
Zuckerman: I learned something new about election law.
Juravich: Um, so Ohio's 88 county boards of elections have been notified that votes will not be counted Do you do? Do they put it like do they put a little asterisk on the ballot or do they hang up a sign when you go vote? That says, you know fyi if you vote for Heather Hill, it won't count
Tebben: I think it's in all of the ballot, or at least in my experience, it's been in the individual ballot things. It has a sign that says, this candidate has withdrawn.
BeMiller: Yeah, I mean for like the early voting is underway, military voting is under way, so they've already printed ballots. I suspect they're not gonna print new ballots, so I think there'll just be signage in the polling places letting folks know that this is the case.
Juravich: Well, it's like it's electronic voting though. So couldn't they update it for actual in-person voting on election day? Can't they could they take her name off?
Zuckerman: Well, the ballots have already gone out and people have already voted.
Juravich: Yeah, so they have to all match.
Zuckerman: Yeah, I think all voters need to be asked the same question.
Juravich: Oh, okay, I see. Interesting. All right. Well, coming up on the Reporter Roundtable, we're going to talk about a story that Jake wrote recently about nursing homes that was picked up by the Washington Post and other media. And we're also going to talk about the effort to abolish property taxes. That's when the Reporter Roundtable from All Sides continues on 89.7 NPR News.
You're listening to All Sides in the Weekly Reporter Roundtable. I'm your host, Amy Juravich. Still with us, we have Jake Zuckerman, reporter for Signal Ohio, Susan Tebben, reporter for the Ohio Capital Journal, and Haley BeMiller, state government and politics reporter for The Columbus Dispatch.
And Jake, you recently wrote a story. It happened to be picked up by The Washington Post and other media, and it had to do with Ohio nursing homes increasingly discharging their residents to homeless shelters. How did you find out this was happening?
Zuckerman: Well, I got a well-placed tip about one of these events occurring more recently. And ProPublica has a pretty awesome database where they just jam all these federal inspection reports. And I was wondering, are there more instances of this?
And just started searching homeless, homeless shelter, those kinds of terms, and was shocked to learn. I don't want to say common. People shouldn't fear that their grandparents are about to get evicted. But It's increasingly common that's according to both advocates who ombudsman who act as legal advocates for people in nursing homes, the industry itself. There's pretty open acknowledgement at this point that this is just an increasing occurrence and it's hard to say just how frequently it's happening.
Juravich: And when you say they're discharging their residents, does it mean that they weren't able to pay for where they were or that they were in like a rehab facility and then were being sent home? Like, what's the-
Zuckerman: So these are involuntary discharges. They can happen for different reasons. In most cases, it's non-payment, which is usually an insurer, namely Medicaid, cutting off benefits after some amount of care. Sometimes it's behavioral. There could be any number of reasons, but the operating point is that nursing homes have two important legal standards they have to meet.
A discharge must be, quote, safe and appropriate. And in almost all circumstances, tenants need you must give 30 days notice. So when you think about that, A, you're not just out on the street in a day and B, even if this nursing home is discontinuing care, you're supposed to go somewhere where you're, usually these people are older, sicker and poorer and you need to send them to somewhere where a complex spread of diseases and conditions can be managed. And in most cases, homeless shelters just are simply not that.
Juravich: Does the state have any role here? You talked to the state ombudsman. Is it, how do you say it, Lanaya?
Zuckerman: Oh, um, Pelletier.
Juravich: We know Wilkins her last
Zuckerman: Oh, Chip Wilkins. There's Chip Wilkins and Lil...
Juravich: Leilani. There we go. Okay. Yes, I was struggling with Leilani. So what who is the statewide ombudsman and what and what role does the state have here?
Zuckerman: Sure sure ombudsman you know when you think about who's in these like I said they're older sicker and poorer generally So this is these are people without a lot of political clout probably don't have money for you know Fancy lawyers and whatnot ombudspan act as their de facto lawyers and ombuddspan are notified of every single discharge Out of a nursing home, but that's about 13,000 per month So it's a pretty unwieldy amount of data they were actually unable to say how many of these are involuntary or not that's something they're hoping they can learn amid the AI revolution, but Every one of them goes to ombudsman and ombudsmans are a legal advocate.
They're someone who can say, hey, nursing home, what gives? I mean, this story opens that I wrote that you mentioned that got in the Washington Post. That was very kind of you to mention on the air. There was a woman, her age isn't specified. If you read between the lines, you could tell she's older, but she had a complex mix of diseases. It was the middle of August. She was taken to a homeless shelter and there wasn't even bed space in this homeless shelter.
There was a long queue of people to get in So she was actually out in the street. I mean, just outside in the middle of August. Eventually, I think the homeless shelter staff came to grips with the situation. She was incontinent. She was probably urinating herself. She was confused. She didn't know where she was. Eventually, they let her in and gave her some cold water and a place to sit.
Well, the homeless shelters staff are, what on earth do we do with this situation? We don't have her medications. We don't know how to distribute her medications? We sleep on bunks. Can this woman, old and frail, climb to a top bunk? It's an unsafe situation, pretty plainly on its face. They ended up calling the fire department, which came, there's a special kind of non-emergency sort of team that comes, has social workers, behavioral health experience.
They eventually got her place somewhere else, but this is the kind of case we're looking at. Ombudsman were notified of the situation. Ombudsman notified the state health department. The state has a role inspecting these facilities and writing up these sorts of citations. So the facilities are being cited it. CMS, the Centers for Medicare Services and ODH are aware that this is happening, but it's unclear.
A, it's unclear what, who's gonna do anything to fix the situation and B, we throw around terms like healthcare system and in a system, there's always an answer to every input. We don't really have great, like, what are you supposed to, if you're a nursing home, you know, to give some fairness to nursing homes.
Juravich: If they're not paying yeah if
Zuckerman: Yeah, if the insurance says we're no longer gonna pay you, this person is very, you know, you have to pay for all these medications, all these people can tend to them. Nursing homes are a very expensive form of care. Where do you, you don't, where do they go? You know, where in society are we supposed to put that person? I don't think there's a clean answer, so I don't wanna just make it out like the nursing homes are the only culprit here, but I think all of us could look inward on that situation.
Juravich: All right, well, thank you for your reporting on that. And I guess we're left with more questions than answers at this point, right?
Zuckerman: I think so.
Juravich: I wanted to pivot to another story. The group working to abolish property taxes, also known as Ax Ohio Tax, is pushing its long shot signature gathering. They have until July 1st to collect roughly 413,000 valid signatures. Haley or Susan, do we know where things stand with the signatures right now? They had a press event to basically say they're trying real hard. Yeah, they have.
BeMiller: They have about 305,000 signatures, or they say they do, there was not a way for any of us to independently verify that, so they are still short of the legal requirement and only about halfway toward the goal that they have expressed publicly.
The leaders of that movement have said before they want to get somewhere in the realm of 600,000 something because anyone who has ever. Done about initiative before knows you need to collect more than you think you need because signatures will get tossed out for various reasons. So it's not looking amazing for them at this point, but they do still have until July submit signatures. Andrew Rose is the Concord Township administrator in Lake County and he supports tax reform but he says a complete abolishment like this group wants to do would be devastating.
Andrew Rose: I think something needs to be done to help the low-income seniors that want the ability to stay in their home, but to completely abolish property taxes statewide and crush every local entity is just not a good idea.
Juravich: So Susan, there's more than 65 groups that have come out opposing this ballot measure, existing at all, making it on the ballot. They formed to fight the amendment if it would happen to make the ballot, what does it mean that so many different groups are joining forces?
Tebben: Yeah, I mean, it says something about where we are with the property tax and what people think about it. I mean you're talking about education leaders, you're taking about unions and things like that, all people that represent a lot of other people. And that's something that we've seen in this property tax debate is if you get rid of property taxes, how are you paying for libraries?
How are you pay for, you know, education supports and things that. So It's not surprising to see all those because they've been pretty outspoken so far. But yeah, it does say a lot about where the support is for completely abolishing property taxes because if we have these people saying it, they have talked to their members and their employees and things like that. So that says something.
Juravich: Yeah, and Jake, so basically, if I understand this right, they have until July, so they can try to collect more signatures to get closer to their goal. But if they turn them in and get rejected, they have to start over completely. But if they hold on to them, they can carry them over and try again in 2027. Is that right?
Zuckerman: Yeah, I would think about it. You get one bite of the apple with the signatures that you have. You can, and there is something called a 10-day cure period where if you do fall short, you get 10 days to sort of go out and fill whatever hole might exist, but you're not gonna get, what, 100,000?
You know, you're gonna get some number of thousands or maybe even 10, 20,000, but you are not gonna get this massive load of signatures. So yeah, we're gonna a sense for the risk tolerance of say they have 450,000 signatures. Are they gonna go for it? That's probably unwise, but they might, or yeah, and they can always just punt this off for one year.
I think one thing I'm really curious about is you'd think that one of the best opportunities to gather signatures is actually coming up in an election. To shamelessly steal from Bob Clegg on another WOSU program, if these people are smart, they will go out to every single community where there's a levy on the ballot and find people coming out of those polls and say, hey, did you just vote no?
Or even if you voted yes, are you sick of property tax? Do you want to zero out your property tax bill? Sign this. So I'm curious, you know, they got a lot of statewide, I kind of took this as a plea for attention to, a plea signature gatherers. I'm Curious what kind of mountains they'll be able to move out of it, but I'd point out that 305,000 signatures is short of the goal. It's short of, the legal requirement is short of the go, but that's still a pretty astounding thing from a group of people who really were not taken very seriously throughout this process.
And they're goofy. I mean, in the event we're talking about, my joke is that 40% of them were wearing sunglasses. There were five people given the press conference and I've never seen anyone give a press conference in sunglasses and there were two of them.
Juravich: Were they outside?
Zuckerman: It was inside in a faux replica of the Oval Office. They were at like a fake resolute desk that exists in Geauga County somewhere. It was very kooky. The event opened with the signing of the declaration of, Ohio's Declaration of Independence. I wasn't sure if this was a secessionist bait and switch that I was watching. I mean, it was really a, it was a strange event.
Juravich: Okay, so they were wearing sunglasses inside, which is a whole vibe to begin with, okay, got it.
Tebben: I think the story is the fake oval office in Geauga County, that's the story.
Juravich: All right. Well, we'll see what this group does with or without sunglasses. You're listening to All Sides in the Weekly Reporter Roundtable on 89.7 NPR News. We are talking with Haley BeMiller from the Columbus Dispatch, Jake Zuckerman from Signal Ohio, and Susan Tebben from the Ohio Capital Journal.
A unanimous Ohio Supreme Court ruling that is newsworthy in and of itself. And this one was hands electric consumers, namely renters, a major win. It has to do with sub-metering companies such as public utilities, and they should be regulated as such. So who can walk us through what this means? A unanimous Ohio Supreme Court ruling involving sub-meter companies. I need someone to tell me what sub-metering is. Jake, is that you? Okay.
Zuckerman: If you live in an apartment complex, the electric utility feeds into your master meter. But then there's this question for the apartment owner of how are we going to figure out what each individual tenant is using in terms of electricity, how are you going to bill them for it.
So this used to be sort of just a quiet little administrative industry. And then about the last 20 years, these sub metering companies came in and they insists that they are not public utilities, but they... Source power they say they buy it at a cheaper commercial rate and sell it at the residential rate and they have long been accused of price gouging you know these are tenants sometimes the sub metering companies pay between 20 and 70 thousand dollars per tenant up front and then another six dollars a month so they they see a rev you know you wouldn't pay that money unless you see a revenue opportunity here
And these tenants say they are getting bled dry i mean There are some pretty shocking stories out there I'll add that the submetering industry tends to deny these and they insist that their customers pay no more than ordinary AEP customers do, but all this is only able to exist because Sub-metering companies are legally considered non-utilities if If you are an AEP customer, you can't just have your power shut off at will. You have access to payment plans. There are price controls and what you can actually be charged.
That's what the PUCO is for. And the PUCO can't touch the sub-metering companies because they are not public utilities. And that was according to the sub metering companies and the PUCO, the Ohio Supreme Court, as you mentioned, seven to zero, unbelievable. You just don't see that that often in big cases.
Juravich: Yeah, the lone Democrat, Jennifer Brunner, voted with the majority, but she had some different reasoning, but she did vote with the majority.
Zuckerman: Yeah, she didn't lay out her reasoning, but she agreed in the outcome only and not necessarily the court's reasoning Which and it's interesting because the court reasoning is very legalistic It didn't actually address the any harm any purported harms done to customers But I just don't know what Justice Brunner was thinking but yeah that the court said no no no No, these sub meters are obviously public utilities.
They source electricity. They bring it to your house. They handle the meter they bill you. I mean, if it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck kind of reasoning. So this is all going back to the PUCO now. I'd say the big questions going forward are one, do sub-metered customers currently see a bill drop? I think the likely answer is yes, but we'll see what the PUCO does.
And two, how aggressively is the PUCO going because AEP is claiming AEP brought this lawsuit and AEP's claiming that they have been illegally acting as a utility company for 20 years. So is the PUCO going to seek some sort of fine? So they're gonna be refunds for customers? Or is Is this gonna be a? Going forward, you must do x, y, z.
Juravich: Hmm. All right. Well, we will see. We'll probably hear from you. You like to cover the PUCO. We have only 90 seconds left. Susan or Haley, is there something that you're covering this week that you wanted to highlight or maybe another primary race that you didn't get to about in in 90 seconds.
BeMiller: I think the other really interesting primary in Ohio is up in Northwest Ohio, the ninth congressional district, Republican primary. You have a current and former state lawmaker, a former ICE official running in that race for the chance to take on Marcy Kaptur in the fall, which is going to be a nationally watched tray, so that'll be interesting to see how that shakes out.
Juravich: All right, Susan, you have 30 seconds. Anything you want to highlight?
Tebben: There's a big primary in the Supreme Court races. There's some bunch of Republicans running. So we'll see how that race goes We've got a two different Supreme Court spots, but one is not in a primary and one is got a lot of Republicans in one Democrat running for it. So, we'll how that goes
Juravich: All right, so there's four there's four Republicans running and whoever wins of those four will face Jennifer Brunner in the primary. Correct. All right. Well, we have been talking with Susan Tebben, reporter for the Ohio Capital Journal. Thank you, Susan. Thank you. And Jake Zuckerman, reporter, for Signal Ohio. Thanks, Jake.
Zuckerman: Thank you.
Juravich: And Haley BeMiller, State Government and Politics reporter for the Columbus Dispatch. Thanks Haley. Thanks. And this has been the Reporter Roundtable from All Sides on 89.7 NPR News.