CLEVELAND, Ohio – Ohio Treasurer Robert Sprague would like to change state law to allow investing in cryptocurrency.
We’re talking about House Speaker Matt Huffman as the voice of reason on Today in Ohio.
Listen online here.
Editor Chris Quinn hosts our daily half-hour news podcast, with editorial board member Lisa Garvin, impact editor Leila Atassi and content director Laura Johnston.
You’ve been sending Chris lots of thoughts and suggestions on our from-the-newsroom text account, in which he shares what we’re thinking about at cleveland.com. You can sign up here: https://joinsubtext.com/chrisquinn.
Here’s what we’re asking about today:
How could anyone responsible for our state tax dollars propose investing them in something as scammy as cryptocurrency, and who, thankfully, stands in their way?
We’ve seen plenty of news stories over the years about increasing youth crime, but rarely do we see 9- and 10-year-old kids charged with the most serious felonies. That happened Wednesday in Cuyahoga County. Who was charged, and for what?
Cleveland officials foolishly are flirting with seemingly impossible idea of bringing back traffic cameras. How unpopular is that move? And, which town in Cuyahoga County is making the most money from the cameras today?
How much has Sherrod Brown raised for his Senate campaign in the six weeks since he announced it, and how many of those are the all-important small donations? How does it compare to Jon Husted?
To hear Leila and Laura tell it, the midges rising from Lake Erie this week sound like motorcycles on a highway. Leila keeps saying that the non-mdge seasons keep getting shorter. Is she right?
Let’s get back to culture wars and dog whistles in our beloved State Legislature. What is the Success Sequence and why do we have pending legislation about it?
Why are some people in Lake County protesting their sheriff’s department?
What is banana ball and why are tickets so hard to come by that you have to enter a lottery?
The federal government shutdown hasn’t just screwed up travel plans at airports and some federal parks. Some tourist sites in Ohio are shuttered, too. Which ones?
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Read the automated transcript below. Because it’s a computer-generated transcript, it contains many errors and misspellings.
Chris Quinn (00:01.496)
Listeners to this podcast know I’m big into self-reliance and probably celebrated too much earlier this year when Laura learned to use a chainsaw. But this week she went second level. She took apart a refrigerator and fixed a broken ice maker lookout. So welcome to the latest episode of this old house. Ha ha ha. Just kidding. It’s today in Ohio.
Laura (00:09.731)
my gosh.
Laura (00:19.318)
You
Laura (00:23.735)
Thanks to chat gbt like let’s just be clear
Chris Quinn (00:29.228)
The very unique news podcast discussion from cleveland.com and the plain dealer. I’m Chris Quinn here with our esteemed panel, Lisa Garvin, Leila Tasi and the tool belt pack in Lara Johnston. So Lara, how could anyone responsible for our state tax dollars propose investing them in something as scammy as cryptocurrency and who thankfully stands in their way?
Laura (00:55.073)
I love when you ask me to explain the motivations of our lawmakers because I can never understand what’s going in their heads. And you know, it’s just invaluable. The fact that we’re talking about House Speaker Matt Huffman as the voice of reason wouldn’t have put that on my bingo card for this year. But we’re talking about House Bill 18. It’s sponsored by Republicans. And would expand the state treasurer’s power to invest interim funds. These are public dollars not needed for daily bills into all sorts of things, including cryptocurrency.
It’s uncommitted, so it could be invested in US Treasury bills, government bonds, money market funds. But Treasurer Robert Sprague apparently wants this. His policy director told lawmakers the goal is to make the fund a long-term investment pool for Ohio, and up to 10 % of the money could go into new types of investments, including crypto. They say their safeguards, I think the safeguard should be, don’t invest my tax dollars in crypto.
Chris Quinn (01:50.706)
A couple of things here. Cryptocurrency is not currency. It’s not based on anything like dollars or yen or any of the other world currencies. It is based solely on what people are willing to pay for it. And it has ridiculous swings. The other thing people need to know is government investments are supposed to be the safest, most conservative they can be. And every time in history, the rules get loosened.
There’s an eventual scandal where the taxpayers lose millions of dollars. Before I came to Cleveland, there was a huge one at Cuyahoga County, a huge investment scandal cost a fortune. The whole idea is to be as conservative as you can be to protect the tax dollars. Putting it into something like cryptocurrency is completely inexcusable, should never ever happen. And I can’t believe the treasurer who’s also seeking another office, was he want to be attorney general? He spun the wheel and he kept changing it, but
Laura (02:46.475)
Yes, I believe so. Right, musical chairs.
Chris Quinn (02:49.194)
Yeah, but and he’s terrible. He’s he’s a terrible leader. And now he’s suggesting this. I guarantee you if this happens, taxpayers will lose millions and millions of dollars sometime down the road. And Matt Huffman is absolutely right to raise the red flag and say, I just don’t see it.
Laura (03:06.657)
Right, exactly. And I’m glad for that because he’s saying, I think these are kinds of things are risky. We need to have a long, hard look at that. And I just don’t understand why they’re pushing this right now. He says, we truly want to lead. We have to show our country and world we’re ready to put our money where our mouth is. Like my mouth is not on cryptocurrency. Like this is not something that Ohio is known for, as far as I know. And I don’t know why Ohio should be on the cutting edge of this. It’s just one of those things like
Ohio has enough problems, why are we just making more?
Chris Quinn (03:38.818)
Look, you’d be better off investing in baseball cards. At least there’s something tangible at the heart of it. This is nonsense. We’ve seen it over and over again. Massive amounts of crypto dollars disappearing to scammers. There’s no way our tax dollars should be invested that way. And anybody who suggests it should be just run out of office because they’re fools. Sprague is a fool.
Laura (03:42.626)
Hahaha!
Laura (04:02.187)
and he’s running for secretary of state. that’s that’s in that we’re not obviously not this year or next year, but just remember that.
Chris Quinn (04:05.4)
Secretary of State, okay.
Chris Quinn (04:09.728)
Well, that’s today. Maybe tomorrow it’ll be governor again. He was governor for like a day and then who knows. You’re listening to Today in Ohio. We’ve seen plenty of news stories over the years about increasing youth crime, but rarely do we see nine and 10 year old kids charged with the most serious felonies. That happened Wednesday in Cuyahoga County. Lisa, who is charged and for what?
Laura (04:13.795)
That’s true. That’s true.
Lisa Garvin (04:34.136)
So prosecutors charged a 10 year old girl and a nine year old boy with rape, attempted murder and other charges in a September 13th attack on an autistic five year old girl. This happened behind the Collidwood Athletic Center off of East 148th Street. Prosecutor Mike O’Malley says, quite frankly, I’ve never seen anything like this. He says, you know, the extreme violent and horrific nature of this crime of children against children.
These are among the youngest ever charged with violent crimes in Ohio this year. The last time in Cuyahoga County was a 2018 case where a 10 year old boy was found delinquent for killing his stepmother. The five year old victim was lured to the field according to young witnesses.
The girl, the 10 year old girl apparently led this child into the field. They hit her with a rock, they strangled her, they undressed her, they sexually assaulted both of them. The boy and the girl sexually assaulted the victim, left her in a field. She was there for two hours before she was found naked in the fetal position and had to be hospitalized for several days afterward. Her mother says, you know, they just broke my daughter’s spirit.
The young spirits are, the young suspects are not in detention center yet, but they will appear in juvenile court at a future date.
Chris Quinn (05:50.018)
The most paralyzing part of this for me is I just don’t know that our system is equipped to change the trajectory of these kids. I clearly, nine and 10-year-olds do not come up with these actions on their own. There has to be abuse in their background. An adult has done this to them somewhere along the way. So their victims, as well as suspects, how?
Lisa Garvin (05:58.199)
No.
Chris Quinn (06:16.184)
Does society do it? get why you’re charging them. This is horrendous and it gets them into the system. Maybe the simple answer is get them away from the homes they’re in now, because clearly they’re not getting what they need there. But I just don’t know how the court can handle this to try and change it, because that’s the purpose of juvenile court. When kids go off the rails, these two are way off the rails. How do you get them to adulthood as
as thriving people. It’s one of the most horrendous things I’ve ever seen.
Lisa Garvin (06:51.126)
Well, and you’re assuming that they’re products of a neglectful home. They might not be. They might not just, they might just be cruel. They might’ve been raised on video games and violent TV. We really don’t know. And probably some of them are abuse victims. I think what bothers me about this is that there were a bunch of young kids that saw this happen and they later talked to police and told them what happened in quite a lot of detail, but none of them intervened while it was going.
Chris Quinn (07:17.582)
And it’s just one of the worst tragedies would come down in a long time. It’s a and it’s a tough one for everybody involved in the system. You’re listening to Today in Ohio. Let’s talk about some more foolish elected officials. Cleveland officials foolishly are flirting with the seemingly impossible idea of bringing back traffic cameras. Well, how unpopular is that move? And which town in Cuyahoga County is making the most money a boatload of it from the cameras today?
Leila (07:47.141)
Oh, Chris, Cleveland officials are getting major side eye over this one. The idea of bringing back these traffic cameras is so unpopular and backlash has already started. Remember, Clevelanders voted three to one back in 2014 to ban the cameras unless a cop is physically present to hand out the ticket. But while Cleveland debates it, there are some suburbs that are cashing in big time. Leading the pack is not Lindale.
But Newburgh Heights, Newburgh Heights, pulled in a jaw dropping $4.3 million from just two cameras on Harvard Avenue in a single year. That’s more than any other city in Cuyahoga County, even Lindale, which is very maligned for its camera use. And it has that infamous speed trap by the Memphis Kitty Park. Other suburbs are getting their slice too. Parma brought in about one and a half million. Parma Heights around 840,000 and East Cleveland nearly 3 million.
So the trick is put the cameras in school zones. That way the state can’t dock your local government funding, which it normally does dollar for dollar for camera revenue. So as Cleveland is considering this resurrection of its traffic cameras to fight reckless driving, the question is whether it would make financial sense, but also whether voters would ever forgive the city for trying this.
Chris Quinn (09:14.562)
Well, look, what we just talked about, what you just talked about is the reason nobody trusts the city here. If this truly were about safety, I think more people would say, yes, we should have safer streets. But when you look at what Newberg is doing and what Lindale is doing, what East Cleveland is doing, it’s got nothing to do with safety. It’s all about how much money can we get by using these. that’s why Cleveland voters voted it down. It was a cash grab.
And Jean Campbell was even open about that when she started it. We need the money. So that’s what we’re doing. We need to boost our budget. So it defeats the whole safety argument. The beauty of traffic cameras is they don’t discriminate. I mean, there’s a we talked a few years ago about a university circle police. What was it? 90 percent of the people they pulled over were black. And it was it was ridiculous. And they claim that, we don’t target. But the numbers belied that.
Traffic cameras don’t do that. They treat everybody the same, but Cleveland wouldn’t do this to make it safe. They would do it to boost their budget and the voters won’t have it. Our reporter did find a big conversation on Reddit in which people were not having any of this, right?
Leila (10:28.776)
Yeah, they called it a money grab. Some said it was an extortion scheme. There was a Reddit user who said that Cleveland should employ a third party to extort money from motorists. Yeah, I’m not going to go. I’m going to go with a no on that one, he said. But it was interesting because amid all that outrage, there were some Clevelanders who admitted that the city’s driving culture has gotten kind of out of control. And one commenter said, listen, I don’t like tram…
Chris Quinn (10:42.094)
the
Lisa Garvin (10:53.143)
Yes ma’am.
Leila (10:55.936)
traffic cameras as much as the next guy, but the driving in the city is crazy. And another said they hated the old cameras, but they’re starting to rethink things after seeing people blow through red lights and weave through traffic at 40 miles an hour or 40 miles over the limit. that’s kind of the problem that I think city leaders have honed in on, or they say that that’s what’s driving their push for these cameras. But like I said, school zones are really their only way to
thread the needle with the state law because that’s the only spot where you can install cameras without having to give up some of that local government funding from the state.
Chris Quinn (11:33.922)
I wonder if a better solution would be for Mike DeWine to create a special highway patrol unit that you can send in to cities for a month at a time to do traffic. They did this when we had the violent crime wave with the Qias and the Hyundai’s and the wildness that was going on. They sent in the highway patrol. There was a huge operation and it really did work. Justin Bibb got all these agencies together.
made a couple of runs in it and they toned it down. Maybe that’s the way to do it is to have a unit that is focused on making cities better. I’m sure Cincinnati and Columbus, Toledo would all benefit from it. And then residents who are worried about safety would at least see some action.
Leila (12:19.532)
I think they should install more of those speed tables. Have you ever gone over one of those going full speed? But they jack up your car if you don’t know that you’re going, if you don’t slow down. Just.
Lisa Garvin (12:19.886)
Ugh. I hate those things.
Lisa Garvin (12:29.877)
That’s true.
Chris Quinn (12:29.942)
No, they’re good. They work. They’re good. They do slow things down. mean, that would make a difference in chronically bad areas.
Leila (12:37.024)
Absolutely. They should just throw a bunch of those at the problem. think you’ll see people slowing down.
Laura (12:40.707)
You did make the point recently about the radar, like even though you know you’re not going to get a ticket if it shows you like in that zone.
Lisa Garvin (12:41.89)
But then.
Leila (12:51.02)
Yeah, that’s true. I do think there’s a psychological effect on most people that when you see the speed that you’re traveling at and it’s above the limit, you do slow down even if you resent it.
Lisa Garvin (12:53.997)
Mm-hmm.
Laura (13:04.012)
Right.
Chris Quinn (13:04.206)
I’m a little bit surprised the traffic cameras are so effective for these other suburbs now because if you’re on Google Maps or any of the other Traffic things they warn you you’re coming up on a camera I mean you get warned now if there’s a cop running radar and then it asks you is he still there? So so I’m surprised that that many people are getting caught. They must not be using mapping in their cars
Laura (13:30.723)
I mean, you just go under that bridge in Lindale and I do it every time I go to the office, right? Everybody is breaking down to 20 miles an hour. Like, I don’t think you could get cop, if there’s any other cars around, even if you’ve never been there before, you’re like, why is everyone crawling? Yeah, but I don’t know that Lindale is.
Lisa Garvin (13:45.87)
So it’s a deterrent. So the cameras are a deterrent. Hmm, who would have thunk it?
Chris Quinn (13:51.296)
Now, they’re cash cow, Lisa. That’s what they are. It’s a budget builder, and that’s not the way you should build a budget. You’re listening to Today in Ohio. How much has Sherrod Brown raised for his Senate campaign in the six weeks since he announced it? And how many of those donations are the all-important small ones? How does it compare to John Husted,
Lisa Garvin (13:53.301)
So what?
Laura (14:12.963)
So $8 million in just in the six weeks since he first entered the race. So he is just racking them up. And 97 % of those were less than $100. The average donation was $24.36. He had 25,000 Ohioans from all of the state’s 88 counties, according to his news release. As of late last night, we still hadn’t seen the full report. we’ll be following up on this. But John Huston, not so much.
$3.8 million in that same period between July and September. He’s up to nearly $8 million, but not over the whole year. So this is already shaping up to be a hugely expensive race. The Republicans were crowing saying that Houston raised the most of anyone the year before the election took place. I mean, we’re in for like another year of this. Just so we’re clear.
Chris Quinn (15:06.252)
Yeah, I know. And it all, think, does come down to the economy. They’ll all spend a fortune. Every time we cover these elections, we end up saying most expensive election in Ohio history. But a lot of this is going to come down to where the country’s at this time next year.
Laura (15:17.005)
Mm-hmm.
Laura (15:23.043)
And there are, mean, those are not the only people in the race. There’s a couple other long shot democratic candidates, including a guy who put in $5 million of his own money, Fred Odie, a Luring County entrepreneur. Never heard of him. I don’t know that he’s got a chance, but so we’re just gonna keep ratcheting it up.
Chris Quinn (15:42.034)
Yeah, I’ll be interested to see if Brown uses the messaging of let’s stop giving all of our tax money to rich people. Seems like the best message that the Democrats have both statewide and nationally, but they’re not really such terrible messaging people. Democratic Party is so broken. But that’s the message. That’s the thing that I think will resonate with people. They’ve taken your money and given it to wealthy people. The rich get richer.
Laura (15:51.81)
Yeah.
Chris Quinn (16:11.488)
And you don’t. You’re listening to Today in Ohio. To hear Leila and Laura tell it, Lisa, the midges rising from Lake Erie this week sound like motorcycles on a highway. You and I don’t live near the water, so we’re not hearing that droning sound. Leila keeps saying that the non-midge seasons are getting shorter. Is she right?
Lisa Garvin (16:27.662)
Yes, and it’s basically based on the temperature not only of the Lake Erie water, but the sediment at the bottom of the lake. So we talked to Department of Natural Resources fisheries biologist Travis Hartman and he says, the lingering warmth of Lake Erie has spurred a late season hatching of midges that are now swarming northeast Ohio.
And Laura says she has to keep her mouth closed when she jogs in the morning so she doesn’t eat any for breakfast. This is pretty rare for mid-October, but it’s not unprecedented. So midges spend much of their life in the larval stage in the sediment on the bottom of the lake. And then they emerge as adults when the water temperature reaches about 60 degrees. And that’s usually in the spring.
but the current Lake Erie water temperature is about 66 degrees and that’s well above the October norm. And also Hartman says the sediment at the bottom of the lake is also warmer. So unusually warm autumns are making late season activity more common. The same thing famously happened in 2007 during the Cleveland Indians, New York Yankees playoff game at Progressive Field. And it was of course, you know, on television.
television and they got swarmed by midges. think they had to stop the game for a couple of minutes actually. And they also say that mayflies can emerge in October if conditions are right.
Chris Quinn (17:49.656)
But yesterday when we were in the office and Layla and Laura were talking about it, they’re making it sound like these things are so loud as to get into your head and you want to get away from them. And now Layla is wondering, maybe she lives too close to the lake, right Layla?
Leila (18:04.308)
yeah, my husband said one day that if he knew how bad the midges were, he would not have considered living in Bay Village. It’s terrible. I think this is a serious quality of life problem. need to deal with it right away.
Chris Quinn (18:11.534)
You
Chris Quinn (18:20.802)
Well, Lara discusses running like Lisa said, and she’s got him going in her nose and…
Laura (18:25.351)
and I don’t live close enough to the lake that I’m getting them at my house right now. We do get midges at my house right now, sometimes, not in the last couple of days. But when you run under them, you can see them cloud of them right up by the street light, because it’s dark out, and you can hear them. And then you know you’re going to just run right through a cloud of them. And I’m waving with my arms, trying to breathe. I’m doing the ptit, ptit, ptit, like spitting. My dog is like, what is going on here?
It is not pleasant. It is only a couple of days when it’s really that bad, but you do not want to enter a swarm of bitches. It’s not good.
Chris Quinn (19:04.866)
But Lisa, in the spring when we were getting swarmed by bugs, those were midges, right?
Laura (19:10.21)
Mm-hmm.
Lisa Garvin (19:10.476)
Yeah, yeah, and I’ve never seen such a heavy midge population. I’m about six miles as a crow fights from the lake, and I’ve never seen midges so heavy as I did this year.
Chris Quinn (19:19.544)
But we’re not seeing them at all now, right? don’t have them. Yeah, it’s odd.
Lisa Garvin (19:21.278)
No, I haven’t seen any.
Laura (19:23.841)
Well, because it happens, you know, those twice a year when the lake bed gets to that temperature. But yeah, when you have a lake that’s that warm, it’s pushing it back. Like the lay was right. We’re getting longer, you know, later in the year midseason.
Chris Quinn (19:38.702)
All right, you’re listening to Today in Ohio. Let’s get back to culture wars and dog whistles in our beloved state legislature. What is the success sequence and why do we have pending legislation about it, Leila?
Leila (19:50.405)
So lawmakers in Columbus are pushing this bill pretty hard. It’s the success sequence. part of what every Ohio student learns between sixth and 12th grade is what they want. They want to see this baked into that. And here’s the idea behind it. If you finish high school, get a full time job and get married before having kids, you’re supposedly far less likely to end up living in poverty. So supporters of this, mostly Republicans, including bill sponsor Senator Al Cutrona,
say that this is a pretty simple, empowering formula for financial stability. They cite research from places like the Brookings Institution and the conservative American Enterprise Institute, showing that people who follow these steps are overwhelmingly not poor as adults. But the critics say it’s not that simple, and it’s not neutral either. Brookings’ own follow-up research found that even when Black Americans follow all of these steps,
they still have worse economic outcomes than white Americans. And opponents like Planned Parenthood, Advocates of Ohio, Abortion Forward, and Teachers’ Unions, they all argue that the bill promotes a really narrow, moralizing view of success that doesn’t reflect the diverse lives that people actually lead. One teacher said that success can’t and shouldn’t be defined by a single rigid formula. So this proposal, Senate Bill 156, would require the State Education Department
to create this curriculum built around the success sequence. And local districts could choose how to teach it. For high schoolers, at least one graduation required class would have to include it. And the measure sits alongside another bill that would declare a natural family month between Mother’s Day and Father’s Day, which tells you the ideological space that it’s operating in.
Chris Quinn (21:37.58)
Yeah, I just don’t see the need for legislation on this, right? It’s the kind of thing that that exists. I just don’t understand why they’re enshrining it into the law that schools would have to do this. It feels more and more like Jerry Serino’s college bill, right? Where it’s trying to create dogma for students to brainwash them.
Leila (21:42.392)
Great.
Leila (22:00.313)
Right, it solves nothing. mean, this is just legislating a moral code that defines worthiness through marriage and work and ignores all of the structural barriers that keep people in poverty, no matter how hard they follow these so-called rules. So, mean, teaching kids that success is this checklist of personal choices without acknowledging racism and underfunded schools or lack of access to childcare.
You know, that’s just, they’re calling it empowerment, but it’s just a indoctrination.
Chris Quinn (22:35.062)
Next thing you know, they’ll be requiring them to be taught how to invest in cryptocurrency. You’re listening to Today in Ohio. Lisa, why are some people in Lake County protesting their sheriff’s department?
Leila (22:40.068)
Ha
Lisa Garvin (22:47.406)
Well, there’s a group calling themselves the Lake Geauga Fights Back Network, and they’re planning an ICE protest rally on Monday, October 20th, outside of the Lake County Sheriff’s Office from 6 to 7 p.m. that offices in Painesville. So they’re protesting the decision by Sheriff Frank Leon Bruno to sign an agreement with ICE that allows deputies to question, detain, and begin deportation proceedings based on somebody’s immigration status. you know, and as we know, there are a lot of
Hispanics, Mexicans, particularly in Painesville and Lake County, 6 % of Lake County’s residents were born outside the US, 5 % are Hispanic or Latino. So protestors are saying this agreement that they are handling ICE arrestees erodes trust between law enforcement and immigrant residents. And the protest comes after week of public outcry over this. Residents went to
county meetings to speak out and they’re urging, you know, the sheriff to withdraw from this agreement. Organizer Rachel Rodriguez says they’re just tired of money being diverted from local priorities to target, you know, valuable members of the community.
Chris Quinn (23:57.998)
Well, in danger, The immigrant population in Lake County is a big part of the farm economy. And if the farmers lose the ability to hire the workers, they’re not going to be able to thrive. So I would think that business interests of Lake County would be telling the sheriff’s department to back off. but that, you know, every government agency, when they see dollars, they, let’s go get them. The government right now is paying a lot of money for this kind of help.
Lisa Garvin (24:04.738)
Correct.
Lisa Garvin (24:27.766)
I had a friend who was an immigration lawyer who had a lot of clients in Painesville and I went to a couple meetings with her and I was amazed at, mean, Painesville people are very protective of their Hispanic population. So I’m not surprised to see this protest rising up. I hope to see a lot of people there.
Chris Quinn (24:45.632)
Okay, you’re listening to Today in Ohio. What is banana ball and why are tickets so hard to come by that you have to enter a lottery Laura?
Laura (24:53.325)
Well, people love this silly baseball show because it’s really more of a show than a game. I’ve never seen it, but I have entered the lottery to get tickets for next September when Banana Ball comes to progressive field. And it’s not the Savannah Bananas. It’s their league that they helped found. So it’s going to be, I believe, the party animals and the Indianapolis clowns that are putting on this kind of bonanza. So what they do is they do play
baseball, they prioritize fun and constant entertainment. So they have all unique rules and on-field antics and a strong focus on fan experience with chaos and choreographed dances. I’ve seen photos of the players doing a can-can kick line. So creative rules, I guess it’s just kind of zany and fun.
Chris Quinn (25:44.454)
When I was a kid, it was pretty much on me to go find my fun. mean, you do a few things a year, go to amusement park or something, but pretty much you are on your own with your friends. It feels like today, parents every week have got to come up with things to take their kids to and that it gives rise to silly things like this.
Laura (26:04.291)
That’s an interesting perspective. I do think our culture is much more kid-focused than it was when I was growing up. Just the number of businesses geared toward kids, right? We had Chuck E. Cheese, that existed. But all the trampoline parks and the main events and all of these things do feel new. I assume parents like this or else they wouldn’t be buying tickets. Then again, parents go see Descendants versus the Zombies World Tour.
Chris Quinn (26:18.112)
Hahaha
Laura (26:34.177)
I don’t know. think you’re right. There’s more of a focus on to providing that for kids, but hopefully this is good, clean family fun. mean, like you said, it’s sold out. It’s so popular. You can’t even just try to get tickets. You have to enter a lottery before October 31st and then they’ll let you know if you got that tickets. Meanwhile, you got on a mailing list for everything that that group wants to send you.
Leila (26:56.9)
Isn’t this a lot like the Harlem Globetrotters kind of thing? mean, and that predates the cultural shift toward trying to entertain your kids constantly.
Chris Quinn (26:56.951)
I know.
Laura (27:00.437)
Yes. Yes.
Chris Quinn (27:00.589)
Yeah.
Laura (27:05.667)
true.
Chris Quinn (27:07.084)
Although that was that was less about kids than it was about adults. mean, the Harlem Globetrotters were pretty good athletes that could do a lot of things. So I don’t know. When I was a kid, I knew about him, but that was something that adults were as interested in as kids. don’t know. This just seems silly. It seems like a nine inning long hot dog race that, you know, they I mean, it just wouldn’t. Yeah, I mean, it’s just the one interesting thing is if a fan catches a foul ball, the batter’s out.
Laura (27:28.695)
with twerking umpires.
Leila (27:31.748)
Chris Quinn (27:36.428)
So that’s an unusual one. just, it just feels like there’s a lot of stuff like this today that’s aimed at kids that didn’t used to exist. And no, I just, it’s, this seems silly. If I were a parent that had to take my kid to this and pay top dollar, apparently the second hand market for tickets is really high. I just roll my eyes and think, you know, what happened to kids going out and, know, all right.
Laura (27:45.923)
Chris is gonna start yelling, off my lawn.
Laura (28:01.123)
playing at the Sandlot.
Chris Quinn (28:06.49)
You’re listening to Today in Ohio. The federal government shutdown hasn’t just screwed up travel plans and airports and some federal parks. Tourist sites in Ohio were shuttered too. Laila, which ones?
Leila (28:18.37)
Yeah, some of these have gone dark because of the shutdown. It’s kind of depressing. So top of the list is the National Museum of the US Air Force in Dayton. That’s the largest military aviation museum in the world. It’s closed. That’s the one with the presidential planes, the B-2 stealth bomber and the Wright Brothers exhibits. The nearby Dayton Aviation Heritage National Historical Park, including the Wright Cycle Company shop, also shuttered.
Up north, the James A. Garfield National Historic Site Mentor is closed, along with the William Howard Taft National Historic Site in Cincinnati, and the National First Ladies Museum in Canton, which we’ve talked about. And if you’re planning to take in the view from Perry’s Victory and International Peace Memorial on Put-in-Bay, that observation deck is closed too, and it’ll stay that way for the next two years because of upcoming repairs.
So there are some bright spots though. Ohio’s only national park is still open, even if the visitor center and Ranger programs are paused. And several state run or privately managed presidential sites remain open, including the Warren G. Harding home in Marion, the Rutherford B. Hayes Presidential Library and Museum in Fremont, and the Grant Boyhood home in Georgetown. So tourism groups say the closures are already hurting their local economies, but the US Travel Association estimates that the nationwide shutdown has cost over $2 billion so far.
And every day that drags on means fewer visitors and canceled trips and missed opportunities for towns that kind of really depend on those tourist dollars.
Chris Quinn (29:45.752)
Speaking of national parks, ours gets very high ratings from visitors, but our videographer, John Panna, has done a couple of hilarious videos in which he reads some of the one star reviews in a very comedic fashion. Check him out. It’s on YouTube’s cleveland.com channel, John Panna National Park. You’re listening to Today in Ohio. That’s it for the Thursday episode. Thanks, Laura. Thanks, Lisa. Thanks, Leila. Thank you for being with us. We’ll return on Friday to wrap up a week of news.
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