We know we need more power options, but do we really want Ohio to lead the U.S. in uranium enrichment? Today in Ohio

Today in Ohio

Today in Ohio, the daily news podcast of cleveland.com and The Plain Dealer.

CLEVELAND, Ohio - Gov. Mike DeWine and Ohio’s two Republican senators want the Trump administration to reserve a “majority share” of $3.4 billion federal investment in uranium enrichment for a company trying to revive domestic production in Southeast Ohio.

We’re talking about the future of nuclear energy 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.

You can now join the conversation. Call 833-648-6329 (833-OHTODAY) if you’d like to leave a message we can play on the podcast.

Here’s what we’re asking about today:

How many students at how many Ohio colleges have had their visas revoked by the Donald Trump administration?

Why do Mike DeWine, Bernie Moreno and Jon Husted think Ohio could be a big player on the national energy front in a carbon neutral form of power-generation?

If an Ohio Congressman takes on an Ohio senator in the courts, who wins?

Speaking of Miller, he’s the rare Republican in Northeast Ohio to hold an in-person session with constituents, although it clearly was a supportive crowd. He said some interesting things about NASA, Ukraine and tariffs. What did we learn?

Wait times to see healthcare specialists grew ridiculously during the pandemic. Has making an appointment become any easier recently with the three major health systems in Northeast Ohio?

Maybe those delays are costing them money. What’s the latest on how Cleveland’s health systems fared financially in 2024?

The U.S. Marshals Service Fugitive Task Force has been working for years to find and arrest the bad guys. It hit a big milestone last month. What was it?

When Cleveland City Council president Blaine Griffin drew the new council maps to deal with the reduction of the council size, he put one of his favored council members into the same ward with a councilwoman he does not favor. Are the two going to face off

We end by marking the life Joan Campbell, mother of former Cleveland Mayor Jane Campbell, who made such an impact during her lifetime that the New York Times wrote an obituary about her. What are some of the many things that made the Rev. Joan Campbell apart from raising a future Cleveland mayor?

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Read the automated transcript below. Because it’s a computer-generated transcript, it contains many errors and misspellings.

Chris Quinn (00:00.787)

The March 2 authoritarianism comes home to Ohio. It’s the first story we’ll be talking about on Today in Ohio the news podcast discussion from cleveland.com and the plane dealer I’m Chris Quinn here with Courtney Astolfi Lisa Garvin and Laura Johnston Lisa how many students at how many Ohio colleges have had their visas? mysteriously revoked by the Donald Trump administration

Lisa (00:28.334)

Well, we’re still trying to get firm numbers, but it looks like at least 49 Ohio international students at 12 colleges and universities have had their student visas revoked. Now this is all being tracked by an online publication called Inside Higher Ed, and they’ve been looking at Ohio and the nation as a whole, and they’re using local media reports to make their reports.

So they’re estimating there are about 1200 students at 180 US institutions that have had their legal status changed. Here in Ohio, Youngstown State was hit the hardest. 14 of their students have had their visas revoked. OSU right behind them at 12. Case Western Reserve four, also Kent and Walsh University in North Canton had four student visas revoked. University of Akron had three as well as the University of Findlay. Only one apiece at Cleveland State.

Bowling Green State, and at least one at Xavier University. We didn’t get any firm numbers from either the University of Cincinnati or University of Toledo. They both said a small number of their students have been affected. So case president Eric Kaler says, it’s now illegal for revoked students to either study or work in the US. They’re advising all their international students, faculty and staff to avoid traveling outside the US and carry their passport.

permanent resident card or visa stamps at all times. UK or University of Akron spokesman Christine Boyd says, we didn’t get advanced notice from the government and a lot of schools are saying the same thing. So schools are having to check this database. It’s called the Student and Exchange Visitor Information System or SEVIS. And they have to check it regularly for revoked visas because they’re not being told that this is happening.

Chris Quinn (02:12.017)

Look, I know if you’re listening to this podcast, you are hearing and seeing a nonstop series of decisions coming out of Washington and they can all blend together. But this is different. If you’ve ever been to the Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C., and you watch the timeline of how that government came to power, this is a step. You make people that are legal residents

somehow subhuman. You start treating them as lesser and abusing them. Every one of these people is in America legally. They applied for visas. They were approved after whatever goes into the checks. They uprooted their lives to get the kind of education we provide in this country. And now their lives are chaos without explanation. Nobody at the administration is saying this person’s visa is revoked because of X.

They’re just secretly doing it, moving a pace, going after more and more people that they don’t like because they believe they’re speaking against them or somehow present a danger to their status. This is as bad as it gets. We’re going to throw a lot of resources to put in a spotlight on this, but don’t look at this as just another one of the Donald Trump’s crazy decisions. They are moving toward authoritarianism with steps like this.

Lisa (03:39.47)

We have to keep the spotlight on this. agree, Chris, and I hope we go after it aggressively. And it seems like the focus appears to be on students that are from the Middle East, Asia, North Africa, and those of the Islamic religion. But again, we don’t know who these students are. We don’t know their names. We don’t know their nationalities. So yeah, there’s a lot to uncover.

Courtney (04:02.388)

And Lisa, that’s like, that’s a national trend, right? Folks who it appears they’re going after. We don’t have any visibility right now why they’ve chosen these kids in Ohio.

Chris Quinn (04:02.469)

No due process. Go ahead, Corey.

Laura (04:15.201)

No, they’re saying that they’re targeting some students for anti-Semitic actions, but we don’t have any details at all of what they’re being accused of. And when you couple this with what you’re seeing happening at the Supreme Court and with El Salvador, it is terrifying just to know that people are being taken and we’re not even hiding it. And they’re being sent to maximum security prisons wrongly. It’s just all of it together is just it makes me nauseous.

Chris Quinn (04:43.891)

You can generalize and say, well, we’re going after people that made anti-Semitic statements, but everybody deserves due process. And when individuals have popped up and the background has been checked, they haven’t been guilty of what they’ve been accused of in some cases. That’s why there is due process. This is that whole Donald Trump, us versus them mentality. And he’s creating more and more thems for his base. And unfortunately,

Laura (04:52.312)

Yes.

Lisa (04:53.251)

Mm-hmm.

Chris Quinn (05:12.081)

that base watches Fox News, gets lied to about this kind of thing, and believes in it. I get emails all the time. Why are you talking about the good things Donald Trump is doing? A march toward authoritarianism? There is no good. Nothing he’s doing is good. This is bad for our government, and it has to stop. People have to stand up. The more people stay in the shadows, act out of fear, the more easy it is for this march to the end of democracy.

Laura (05:32.44)

Right.

Chris Quinn (05:41.447)

Just like we’ve seen in Germany and other countries, this is the time for people to scream and say, no, we want the names. We want to know what they’re accused of. We want them to have a day in court.

Laura (05:41.453)

Right.

Laura (05:53.263)

Right, because otherwise they can just point and say that person’s a terrorist, that person’s a terrorist, and invoke whatever weird wartime powers they’re using to say these people are a threat to American society and need to be removed.

Lisa (05:53.314)

What’s up?

Chris Quinn (06:06.119)

They’re legal residents. They are here legally. And we are revoking our permission for the mysterious reasons. Donald Trump is a madman who’s out of control and people have got to stand up. So many people are operating in fear, hiding. Thank God Harvard stood up and said, no, this far and no farther. I wish every institution he’s gone after would show that same kind of steel. This is a bad day. We need to explore it more.

Lisa (06:26.424)

Yeah.

Lisa (06:35.278)

Yeah, it sounds like, no, I was just gonna say one last thing. Of all the schools in Ohio that had student visas revoked, Ohio State had 12, and they have attorneys, they’re considering their next steps, and I hope all the other universities affected are doing the same thing.

Chris Quinn (06:35.473)

You’re listening. Go ahead, Lisa.

Chris Quinn (06:51.473)

Now’s the time to be heard. You’re listening to Today in Ohio. Why do Mike DeWine, Bernie Moreno and John Husted think Ohio could be a big player on the national energy scene with a carbon neutral form of power generation, Laura?

Laura (07:07.577)

So we’re talking about uranium here. So DeWine and the Republican senators asked the Trump administration to reserve a majority share of $3.4 billion in this federal investment in uranium enrichment for a company that’s trying to revive domestic production in Piqueton in Southeast Ohio. So this was in a letter they sent to US Energy Secretary Chris Wright. The money had been appropriated under Joe Biden, under two pieces of legislation he signed.

and they want it to go to Centris Energy. They have a centrifuge uranium enrichment plant in Pigten. So the US used to dominate this market. Now it’s led by Russia, which has nearly the half of the international market, followed by a consortium of European nations, and then China and France, and then the United States. So Centris, since 2023, has operated 16 centrifuges.

at this plant in Pikedin. They say it’s the first US-owned uranium enrichment plant to start production in 70 years. But it’s more refined than the kind that fuels massive power plants. It’s built for smaller scale reactors, could be distributed around the United States. And now they want to expand, which is why the Ohio politicians are saying, hey, we want that $3.4 billion to go to Ohio for this.

Chris Quinn (08:25.752)

There are some issues with the plant that should be a little bit scary. I love the idea that we’re thinking about nuclear again because it is green energy, not like the natural gas that Ohio is determined to green energy. Yes, you have the problems at the waste and you need rigid, rigid safety standards and lots of inspections to keep things from going awry as they did at Three Mile Island and elsewhere, but

A lot of power in the world comes from this and it doesn’t eat up natural resources. So Ohio trying to get in on it with a plant that provides the fuel, especially when you get fuel from other countries, isn’t a terrible idea. I wouldn’t want to live near it though.

Laura (09:07.395)

Well, the people who live near it in Pike didn’t haven’t want to live near this kind of work for years because between the 1950s and the end of the century, there was a gaseous diffusion plant on the same site and it enriched uranium for the federal government. And then there were fears of a cancer cluster that emerged after a cleanup effort on the site. Critics say it was poorly executed. There was a middle school nearby and the number of kids who graduated from that middle school

They’ve been tracking cancer and it is higher than the rest of the population. So yeah, I wouldn’t want to live next to it.

Chris Quinn (09:45.105)

Yeah, so it’s an interesting one. We need it. If we go with smaller nuclear plants, which are what people are talking about these days, you need the fuel. You don’t want to rely on other nations for the fuel, but who wants it in their backyard? It’s like the waste. We’ve never solved the nuclear waste problem because nobody wants that stuff anywhere near them. You’re listening to Today in Ohio. All right, Courtney, in a fall, if an Ohio congressman takes on an Ohio senator in the courts, who wins?

Courtney (10:15.556)

we’re about to find out, or I’d say probably no one wins here. We’re talking about Max Miller, the U S representative for the West side suburbs of Cleveland. He’s subpoenaed his in-laws as part of his divorce case against their daughter. And as you note in this case, his father-in-law, Senator Bernie Moreno and, and Miller as part of this divorce case is seeking a bunch of records from Bernie Moreno that are to be turned over by May 9th.

So this subpoena is kind of the latest development in this messy ongoing case involving Miller and his soon to be ex-wife, Emily Moreno Miller. They have a one year old who’s tied up in all this too, but one of the big issues in this divorce revolves around the support Emily has been getting from her father, Bernie Moreno. Miller said in court filings that he originally filed for divorce last summer.

after Emily abruptly moved into a Westlake home that she secretly bought. And property records show that a company owned by Bernie Moreno bought the house. So this is kind of, I suppose, a key issue in this divorce. This subpoena that Miller has issued is requiring Bernie Moreno and his wife to turn over documents related to all the financial support they’ve given their daughter over the last five years. And it’s including things like

proof of payment for that house, any attorney’s fees that Bernie Moreno may have paid for his daughter, and just a full paper trail of all monies transferred.

Chris Quinn (11:45.733)

It’s an odd move because if Bernie Moreno is having to provide support to his daughter because she doesn’t have enough money to take care of business, I would think that makes it look worse for Max Miller because there’s not an even division of assets. Why he’s so focused on what her family is doing to support her during this difficult time is a big question mark. But I guess we’re going to see what becomes of it because Bernie Moreno, unless he fights the subpoena,

is going to have to lay it all out.

Courtney (12:17.618)

Yeah, I mean, it’s not really a scandal that a dad’s going to take care of his kid who’s having a rough time. I mean, yeah, sure. Okay. You know, it also part of these court filings though, there’s kind of another chapter that we’ll be keeping an eye on in this case in the coming days on that May 9th due date for all of Bernie Moreno’s documents. That’s the day that Emily’s also expected to be deposed. So more details are coming out. I think the takeaway here is just this is messy.

Chris Quinn (12:21.884)

Right.

Courtney (12:44.822)

Trump-world relationship falling apart. You know, you got to wonder if Miller just wants Moreno to have to publicize his records. you know, you got to wonder what the motive is there.

Chris Quinn (12:57.563)

Yeah, it’s an interesting break. He’s been very aggressive in this and his wife has not been. She has stayed out of the limelight, not issued any statements. We’ll have to see where it goes. You’re listening to Today in Ohio. Speaking of Miller-Lisa, he’s the rare Republican in Northeast Ohio to hold an in-person session with constituents, although it was clearly a handpicked and supportive crowd.

He said some interesting things about NASA, Ukraine, and tariffs. What did we learn?

Lisa (13:29.002)

As you said, Chris, this wasn’t a typical town hall where anybody can show up. It was a ticketed event and it was sponsored by the Strongsville Republican Party. About 200 people attended. There were some protesters outside. This was at a local bar on Pearl Road. So in talking about NASA headquarters, Ohio, of course, has been talking about wanting to bring the headquarters here.

And Miller said that while president JD Vance is behind it and several elected officials in state colleges in Ohio are as well. He says we can land 9,000 employees and we need to generate excitement about this. He said, we can land this puppy because JD Vance was an Ohio Senator and he’s an Ohio vice president. Odd reasoning. But anyway, talking about Ukraine, he voted to support, you know, Ukraine.

He said Putin is a thug who has been abducting kids for Russian soldiers. He said Biden in the world didn’t do enough to stop the Russian invasion. And he also talked about establishing a demilitarized zone between Russia and Ukraine. As far as tariffs, he’s behind Trump 100%. He said that Trump is just adjusting like any smart business owner would do, which made me laugh. He told a questioner who’s concerned about China tariffs to contact

His Miller’s office for an exemption on tariffs.

Chris Quinn (14:49.619)

Yeah, that that was the most troubling part of this. It’s like, hey, if you’re my buddy, if you’re a good standing Republican, I’ll take care of you. Just just come to me and I’ll reach out to the president. We’ll take care of our people. That’s not the way it’s supposed to work. You’re supposed to have tariffs. supposed to be a generalized system. Who you know in Congress shouldn’t be the reason you get out of it. I was glad to see him standing firm on Ukraine. JD Vance has just become coward like in the appeasement like on

Lisa (14:59.278)

Mm-hmm.

Chris Quinn (15:19.385)

on Russia, so is Trump. He just hides in the face of Vladimir Putin like a coward. We need to stand up for Ukraine. Putin is trying to take over Europe, and this is the line in the sand. Of course, we have a president that wants to take over Canada and Greenland, so you don’t expect to see that kind of thing from them. Hopefully, Miller can rally some support with his Republican colleagues in Congress. What do you think of the NASA thing? It just seems odd that we think we have a chance at that.

Lisa (15:48.746)

I, we don’t have a chance. I’m sorry. mean, you know, Houston is where mission control is. It’s where the astronauts live. Florida is where they launch these flights. just, you know, the resources are already there in those two cities. I mean, I think it’s great that they’re going to try, but I don’t think they should expect to.

Chris Quinn (16:06.309)

Yeah, I never thought they should expect to win either. Even with Vance, it just doesn’t seem like it makes a great deal of sense. You’re listening to Today in Ohio. Wait times to see healthcare specialists grew ridiculously during the pandemic. Courtney is making an appointment become any easier with the three major health systems in Northeast Ohio.

Courtney (16:28.928)

Well, it’s hard to get a universal answer there, but at least from the perspective of a ton of our readers, this is still a problem that people are facing every day. So you had put out a note to readers on your subtext account Chris earlier this week, asking what it’s been like to secure these doctors appointments. And we just were inundated with responses describing all kinds of issues when folks try and get in to see, you know, the regular doctors on down to specialists.

And we’re talking across Cleveland’s three major hospital systems here. So one of the folks we heard from, they were talking about how they had hoped to reschedule a clinic appointment that they were supposed to have this week. But when they went to reschedule, they were told there were no open times for either this year or next year, which is a crazy long timeline and probably the most severe example we got. But we heard, you know, from other folks, one person said they had to wait until nearly October.

for an appointment with a dermatologist. And the reader, you know, kind of points out they’re kind of an issue I’m sure we’ve all faced. Like by then their problem will likely be gone and it’ll be too little too late. You know, one other person talked about MetroHealth. They said they had to wait two months to see a urologist at MetroHealth and they praise the excellent care they get from the system. But this person was just concerned it’s a staff shortage thing that’s affecting accessibility for patients.

Chris Quinn (17:53.051)

You wish there were a triage system for this. I get if you want to have an annual appointment with a dermatologist to get your sunspots zapped off, that’s not the most pressing thing. And they could say, yeah, well, we’re scheduling in November. But if you have something acute, it’s immediate, and you can describe it in enough detail where the doctor can tell this is urgent, you would think that there’d be an earlier

earlier appointment. mean, there are times you call the doctor for regular checkups and there are times you call the doctor because you’re in trouble. And there’s no difference. You just get extended forever. And so people show up at urgent care centers and emergency rooms. And I don’t know why the health systems don’t have a scheduling office that can triage and move people up if they are in serious need.

Courtney (18:47.794)

Yeah, well, I mean, the clinic for its part did kind of talk to us about this issue. They said they’re navigating growing demand, but they do have a service kind of that’s in the vein you’re talking about. So they call it FastPass and it’s available on MyChart when you log in. And patients who are, you know, using this program can get a notification when a sooner opening pops up that they’re allowed to snag. So that’s kind of, I suppose, a triage.

And the clinic also told us that emergent issues, like when a patient has worsening severe symptoms, they accommodate those folks quicker than those routine appointments. On Metro Health side of the aisle, they said they’re doing things to also combat this issue. They’ve trained up over 60 medical assistants in the last year to kind of help with the delays. They also said they are redoing their appointment system to optimize scheduling and boost availability of specialty appointments.

in the middle of a pilot program phase right now, but it’s supposed to roll out across the whole system by next year. And then I’ll just say, we also reached out to and they didn’t tell us anything, so not sure what’s going on.

Chris Quinn (19:56.467)

I’m not sure you want to name the system FastPass. I think that was an original Disney FastPass system where you get on the rides earlier. I’m not sure that that’s the kind of feeling you want to have when you’re making a medical appointment. You’re listening to Today in Ohio. Maybe all those delays are costing the hospital system’s money. Laura, what’s the latest on how Cleveland’s health systems fared financially in 2024?

Courtney (20:04.979)

You

Laura (20:20.367)

It’s not good for most of them. We have five major health systems in Northeast Ohio and only the Cleveland Clinic made money last year. Now they made a lot of money, $980 million. But Metro Health, Summa Health, University Hospitals, and Southwest General all saw losses in 2024. And UH had the largest of them, $142 million. And this was after, we’ve talked about this before, 2023 they lost $256 million.

In 2022, they lost $302 million. So that is not looking great for And basically, they’re saying we’ve got a lot of uncompensated care, we have inflation, and this ongoing staffing shortage. So that’s what they’re blaming Metro Health, actually. They lost $4.6 million. But it’s really similar at all the places. They’re just saying things are expensive, staffing is expensive, and we don’t get paid enough from our insurance or from Medicaid to cover our costs here.

Chris Quinn (21:17.713)

Well, if we cut Medicaid, 90,000 people in Cuyahoga County suddenly don’t have health insurance. They’re still showing up at the emergency rooms. The hospitals still treat people regardless of whether they can pay. It’ll be more. The losses will grow and things will get worse. That Medicaid cut looming in Ohio, like the wine has said, the minute the feds cut off the money, those people are done. They’re thrown to the curbside for health care. It will cost us all a fortune.

Laura (21:20.889)

Mm-hmm.

Laura (21:28.366)

Mm-hmm.

Laura (21:41.667)

Mm-hmm.

Chris Quinn (21:46.959)

if that happens.

Laura (21:48.363)

Absolutely. so some hospitals did do well, but those are the ones who generally have a high percentage of patients with private insurance and they have higher reimbursements than Medicare or Medicaid. So it’s hard to look at you age in clinic and see such different performances. I mean, even MetroHealth, which tends to treat the more Medicaid patients and it’s the safety net hospital did better. we’ve seen

We’ve seen those expansion into the suburbs of Metro Health. We’ve seen build new places and we’ve seen them close a bunch of hospitals as well. So we know that they’re trying to balance. I thought it was interesting Metro Health has the new behavioral health hospital and it turns out they didn’t plan it as well as they should have. They need private rooms for all of the folks there and they were banking on shared rooms. So they are transforming those and then they hope to get

their occupancy up, but you would think they would have studied that before they built it.

Chris Quinn (22:51.089)

Okay, you’re listening to Today in Ohio. The US Marshals Service Fugitive Task Force has been working for years to find and arrest the bad guys and it hit a really big milestone last month. Lisa, what was it?

Lisa (23:05.09)

Yeah, the US Marshal Service Northern Ohio Violent Fugitive Task Force made their 60,000th arrest on March 24th. They found David Wayne Garner hiding in a Cleveland Heights apartment. He is accused in an East Cleveland murder. Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Mike O’Malley says, whenever I call the task force delivers and boy have they, it was began, it began as an idea by Northern Ohio US Marshal Pete Elliott back in the early aughts.

of 2000. But when he was appointed as a U.S. Marshal by George W. Bush in 2003, the idea really took off. He said they really needed a coordinated, all-hands-on-deck approach to apprehend dangerous and elusive criminals.

So this task force now involves 125 police departments and 350 police officers and sheriff’s deputies. And they’ve made 60,000 arrests, a huge number of them. Over 15,000 were for drug crimes, nearly 10,000 for felonious assaults. They’ve seized four and a half million dollars and 2,900 guns have been taken off the streets. And law enforcement agencies are full of praise for the task force that has been effective and immediately made a difference.

Chris Quinn (24:19.719)

Pete, Pete Elliott’s one of those once in a century kind of public figures ever since he’s come along and he’s been there now for more than 20 years. He’s just been innovative in every way you can be. He tracks down the bad guys. He’s constantly helping other agencies a long, long run with really no scandal. How many public officials can we talk about in Northeast Ohio that have been around for more than 20 years who are pretty much scandal free, just a good guy?

reporter that’s ever dealt with them has come away admiring his work and this is a big deal. 60,000 dangerous fugitives taken off the street. You are listening to Today in Ohio. When Cleveland City Council President Blaine Griffin drew the new council maps to deal with the reduction of the council size, he put one of his favorite council members into the same ward with a councilwoman he does not favor.

Courtney, are the two going to face off or is one of them going into another ward?

Courtney (25:21.906)

No, it’s really looking like the two are going to face off here. We learned from Councilwoman Rebecca Moore, whose ward currently includes much of the Slavic Village neighborhood and some pieces west of the river as well. She announced that she is running in the newly drawn ward, and that’ll set her up for a contest against Richard Starr. Now, as you mentioned, the dynamics here are a little apparent if you’ve been watching council for the last couple years.

Moore has really in her time on council kind of challenged a lot of different council traditions. She’s been a dissent voice in that category. She’s been very policy minded. She comes out of kind of the activist group that pushed for lead reform in the city several years ago. So that’s one of her big issues. Now on the other side of this coin is Richard Starr. And I think it’s fair to say he is more in the vein of, of Blaine Griffin’s kind of view.

on council, although I will say the two aren’t best buddies all the time. They’ve had their issues, but the face-off is really kind of being set up for more who kind of challenges the council status quo and star who’s more on kind of council president Blaine Griffin side. One thing we want to keep an eye on in this race is, you know, it, it probably goes without saying that Blaine Griffin is going to be.

pumping a lot of money into this race on one side using the Council Leadership PAC fund. So we’re going to have to keep an eye. I don’t think it’s going to be any surprise if Griffin goes in with money to support STAR here.

Chris Quinn (26:59.263)

When let’s remember star had some notoriety late last year with his childish and earlier this year with his childish antics in support of Joe Jones kind of attacking the people that had complaining about Jones Inappropriate behavior. It was a shocking text string that we saw in which he was lining up clearly on the wrong side of the issue

Courtney (27:24.598)

Yeah, and this is going to be interesting to see who the new ward ultimately goes with. know, Star grew up in King Kennedy. He’s definitely a central neighborhood guy through and through, and he rode that into a seat last time around. Moore came out swinging in what’s her soon to be dissolved Slavic village-based ward against a longtime incumbent, Anthony Brancatelli, and she won that race. That was a bit of a surprise.

when she managed to get that buy-in from a community who had been behind Brancatelli for so long. So I think this is going to be a hard-fought race between the two.

Chris Quinn (28:01.787)

Okay, you’re listening to Today in Ohio. We end by marking the life of Joan Campbell, mother of former Cleveland Mayor Jane Campbell, who made such an impact during her lifetime that the New York Times wrote an obituary about her. Laura, what are some of the many things that made the Reverend Joan Campbell remarkable apart from raising a future Cleveland Mayor?

Laura (28:24.653)

Right. I mean, she does sound incredibly incredible. She was friends with all sorts of impressive people, including Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Jesse Jackson, Carl Sagan, Bill Clinton, Nelson Mandela, Bishop Desmond Tutu. And the reason was because of all of her work, she championed the environment, civil rights, human rights, the changing role of women in society. She worked to end apartheid in Africa, poverty within Cleveland, and she worked all over the world.

So she died March 29th at the age of 93, complications from dementia. And she just, she was a regular mom raising her kids in the sixties. When the day she was supposed to graduate from college at the University of Michigan, she ended up giving birth to Jane Campbell, the future mayor. By the time she was 26, she had three kids under the age of five, but she did not let this stop her from.

pursuing her passion. Originally, she wanted to be a doctor. Her dad was a doctor. And he was like, that’s not a good career path. So she ended up taking correspondence classes to earn her theological degree. And then she just used that to make a difference in so many lives. And one of the first women to serve as the Assistant Executive Director of the Greater Cleveland Interchurch Council, she was the Executive Director of the US Office of the World Council of Churches.

She served as the director of religion at the Chautauqua Institution, which is a huge deal. And, you know, in the nineties, she traveled to Serbia during the Balkan Wars to negotiate the release of three American soldiers who had been in prison. So her influence was vast.

Chris Quinn (30:04.145)

Yeah, I remember the long timers at the Plane Dealer, people who were working there long before I arrived in the 90s when Jane Campbell was running for mayor and she was county commissioner. They would they would often talk about the stature of Jane Campbell’s mom. So our condolences to the Campbell family. The obituary is on cleveland.com and on the front page of the Plane Dealer today, which we don’t do with a whole lot of people. So it’s a sign of just how much she meant to.

Laura (30:22.542)

Mm-hmm.

Chris Quinn (30:33.639)

this community. That’s it for the Wednesday episode of Today in Ohio. Thank you Courtney. Thank you Lisa. Thank you, Laura. Thank you for listening. Today in Ohio returns Thursday for another discussion about the news.

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