CLEVELAND, Ohio -- At the core of the juvenile justice system is society’s agreement that children who do wrong are both capable and deserving of rehabilitation in ways that adults often are not.
Today, cleveland.com launches the series Delinquent: Our System, Our Kids. On Today in Ohio we’re talking about some of the best work our newsroom has ever produced.
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.
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More Today in Ohio
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Here’s what else we’re asking about today:
Today we kick off the fruits of seven months of labor, a project called Delinquent: Our System, Our Kids with an aim of improving outcomes in the juvenile justice system in Cuyahoga County. Leila is the project editor. Leila, this one offers an unprecedented look at the system. What makes it so special, and how is it rolling out?
Why do lawmakers go down this road every time a new drug takes hold in a community. It never works, and eventually, it gets repealed because it causes injustice. What is the Ohio House doing about fentanyl, and why is this a terrible idea?
Where have all the students gone? In the first in a continuing series examining the crisis in Ohio higher education, reporter Laura Hancock examines why we have so much college classroom capacity in this state compared with a sharp drop in available students. What is behind this?
The effort to replace a grocery store in Cleveland Heights has offered some rare insights into how retailers look for new digs, and some of it is not what residents want to hear. What makes for an ideal site?
Lisa, our Editorial Board called for this solution months ago. And now it is happening. How do state and local leaders propose to resolve the war-like conflict between Strongsville and Brunswick over a proposed Interstate 71 interchange?
We have noted regularly on this podcast in the past year just how in the bag for corporate interests our state lawmakers are, no longer even pretending to work for the voters who put them in office. Jake Zuckerman found a case in which a state senator may as well have been in the employment of the oil and gas industry when he made a speech. What did Jake tell us?
Did a colossal oopsie with a federal college form spell the end for Richard Cordray as head of the Federal Student Aid office? Why is he departing?
Larry Householder is in a federal prison for his conviction corruption, but now he faces state corruption charges in Cuyahoga County. Will he leave prison to deal with the local case?
A video of Euclid Police officer Micahel Amiott’s beating of man in a 2017 traffic stop put him, and Euclid, into a national spotlight. He seemed to escape justice when County Prosecutor Michael O’Malley said no felony occurred, but then a Euclid jury convicted him of a misdemeanor. Is he escaping justice again?
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Read the automated transcript below. Because it’s a computer-generated transcript, it contains many errors and misspellings.
chris (00:01.153)
It’s a big day for us at cleveland.com and the Plain Dealer. Frankly, it’s one of the biggest in our history. It’s the first story we’ll be talking about on Today in Ohio, the news podcast discussion from cleveland.com and the Plain Dealer. I’m Chris Quinn here with Lisa Garvin, Laura Johnston, and Leila Tassi. And let’s go. Today, we kick off the fruits of seven months of labor, a project called Delinquent, Our System, Our Kids.
with an aim of improving the outcomes in the juvenile justice system in Cuyahoga County. Layla is the project editor. Layla, this one offers an unprecedented look at the system. I’ve been around a long time. I covered juvenile court. We’ve never had anything like this. What makes it so special? And how are you rolling it out?
Leila (00:50.021)
I’m thrilled to see this project launch. Reporters Caitlin Durbin and John Tucker have poured everything they’ve got into this project. They’ve spent months interviewing more than 50 kids who have been involved with Cuyahoga County’s juvenile justice system, as well as their families, attorneys, prosecutors, experts, advocates, judges. They’ve they’ve also read tons of documents detailing their cases and interventions that have been attempted. These are records that are not typically public,
court granted them access with special permission from the kids’ families. That’s how embedded they’ve been in the work of this. We know that kids’ brains and their ability to make sound decisions are still developing all the way until they’re 25 years old, really. So the juvenile justice system is built on that promise of second chances, and the goal is really intervention and rehabilitation, not punishment.
You know, sometimes kids commit really terrible crimes that require them to go to the adult system to protect the public. And our county happens to send more kids to adult prison than any other county in the state. A lot of those kids have cycled in and out of the system for years before they reach that tipping point. And each of those touch points marks a chance at intervention. And for some reason, they didn’t work. So the overarching goal of this project was to help readers.
first understand the complexities of the juvenile justice system and to see the system gaps and failures that might be contributing to that trend. And so in closely examining these cases, there was really so much to learn. We’re running this content over six weeks. The first week serves as the introduction to the issues that we’ll be exploring. Next week will be all about shedding light on the process of mandatory bind over. That’s when a juvenile commits a crime that’s severe enough that it...
ends up bypassing juvenile court altogether and gets sent straight to the adult docket. Prosecutors say that’s necessary to protect public safety, but you’ll hear about some kids whose cases suggest that we need some changes to that system. The following week will be about discretionary bind over, which is when juvenile judges get to make the call about whether kids are tried as adults. A lot of advocates see this as the better way because it requires the court to hold a hearing that looks at the totality.
Leila (03:05.481)
of the kids’ circumstances, but as you’ll see, there are complications to that process as well, and sometimes judges make mistakes. And then the fourth week is all about rehabilitation, the programs and institutions that are yielding terrific results. And in week five, we talk to the victims and their families to understand their view of justice in their cases. And week six is all about hope. We feature the stories of several people who were involved with the justice system when they were youths. And they managed to...
right the course of their life and they’re doing very well.
chris (03:38.818)
Yeah, we’ll be talking about this across the next six weeks. There’s a lot to unpack. A couple things to keep in mind. Cuyahoga County was one of the original leaders in the juvenile justice movement. We were only the second juvenile court in the country. Chicago beat us by a year, more than a century ago. It’s been a long-standing commitment of this community to give its kids a second chance. I’ve been doing this a long, long time, too long to measure.
And over the years, I’ve seen different kinds of projects and different assignments where you, you have hopes at the beginning that you’ll get to a certain level. Sometimes you get about halfway there and you think it’s a missed opportunity. If you get to 80 or 90%, you consider it a pretty big win. But rare is the project that so far exceeds the imagination at the start that you just can’t fathom it. This is that. I cannot believe what
they have come back with. John and Caitlin came back with so much more than the hope at the beginning, the investment they put into this. It’s just marvelous. I’m so charmed by what we’re about to do with this project for the next six weeks. One last thing I wanna point out, I wrote a column to introduce this and I should have thought of something before I did and included it because no sooner did I publish it than I started hearing from a small segment of the community saying, look, this is simple. This is bad parenting.
And okay, yes, these kids, you’ll see, have had some very difficult home lives. But that doesn’t mean you wash your hands of it. That was the tenor of the message. Bad parenting, oh well done, fix the parenting. And you can’t fix the parenting. You can’t legislate parenting. There’ve always been bad parents. And I don’t even want to say bad parents. They’re challenged. You’ll see that the parents were challenged too. But one of the measures of a community is how it
deals with things like this, we owe it to the kids of this community to give them more opportunities whatever their backgrounds in parenting is. So let’s keep an open mind as we move forward with this.
Leila (05:43.749)
I think also one thing that the readers will notice is a pretty prevalent theme throughout these six weeks is the role that trauma plays in the stories of these kids and their families. Trauma in communities that are as impoverished as Cleveland is, it’s an intergenerational problem and the kids who are being raised in environments where that is a constant theme in their life.
are being raised by parents who also have experienced quite a deal of trauma. And so, you know, that’s one of the takeaways here is that there are programs that address those intergenerational traumatic issues. And there’s, you know, special programs that treat the entire family to help them overcome their challenges. And we should be investing heavily to scale up those programs so that they’re available to more families. And yeah.
I mean, this was a theme also in our prior projects in Cleveland’s Promise and a greater Cleveland is to examine how deeply rooted the issues of trauma are in our community.
chris (06:53.693)
Huge credit to the kids in behind bars who gave full interviews and helped with this because they wanted to help future generations. Big salute to both the public defender’s office and juvenile court for largely opening their books letting us have access to stuff we don’t have legal access to. They have to provide that for us to see it. It’s not something that the public record law makes available. We are disappointed despite a year of my negotiating with Chris Ronane in the county.
We’re unable to get the children and family services people to open up. This would have benefited them. We’re not looking for villains here. We’re not calling out anybody who has screwed up. Everybody in this system is trying to do the right thing, but maybe they don’t have the right resources or maybe they need some help. So starts today. The story is going to be published by the time this podcast is up. Check it out. It’ll be there five days a week for the next six weeks and in the Plane Dealer on Sundays. You’re listening to Today in Ohio.
Why do lawmakers go down this road every time a new drug takes hold in a community? It never works. And eventually the law gets repealed because it causes injustice. Laura, what is the Ohio house doing about fentanyl? And why is this a terrible, terrible idea?
chris (08:13.351)
Anybody here, Laura?
laura (08:16.854)
Sorry, it won’t work. It’s probably not gonna work and it’s gonna put more low-level felons in already overburdened prisons. And that’s because this will change the law so that even if you don’t know that you’re buying drugs with fentanyl in them, you could end up in prison. Obviously, fentanyl is a huge problem.
chris (08:17.569)
Come on, let’s go.
laura (08:36.69)
Ohio has one of the highest overdose fatality rates of any state in the nation. It’s present in four out of every five of the 5,000 fatal overdoses in Ohio in 2022, which is a mind-blowing number. It was found in 27% of all the drugs seized by the state last year except for marijuana. So obviously, we know fentanyl is a huge problem. But right now, under the current law, if you possess small amounts of schedule three, four, or five drugs without knowing they contain fentanyl, you’re going to be in a big trouble.
that’s punishable by a first degree misdemeanor. Now, it could be a felony if you have something mixed. That means if somebody buys Xanax that has fentanyl laced in it, they could be going to prison.
chris (09:20.825)
This is such a bad idea. If you want to take the dealers that are intentionally mixing fentanyl in with other drugs to get people addicted, you want to lock them up because they present a safety hazard, fine, lock them up, put them away. But for users who really don’t know what’s going on and have addiction issues, criminalizing it is always a bad idea. We know it. We’ve seen it over and over again. We end up regretting it later because the prisons fill up with low level offenders. It doesn’t help them overcome.
their addictions. We should be doing treatment with the low level offenders and locking up the people that are sowing this stuff into the community. It’s an election year, it’s the only thing I can think and they want to go back to their districts and say, I’m tough on crime, but this doesn’t help. And we will repeal it all a decade from now.
laura (10:09.686)
Well, and you have to remember these people buying drugs are probably victims here, right? They’re addicted. Just like you said, no one is like, hey, I think I’m going to go buy some drugs today because that sounds like a really good idea. The people who are doing this probably feel like they have no choice. They are addicted and they’ve turned to street drugs. And you’re right, they need treatment. They need help. They don’t need to be thrown in prison. And to be fair, why? I mean, the prosecutors are saying, oh, this is another...
Lisa (10:23.061)
and probably feel like they have no choice, they’re addicted, and they’re being treated as a free drug. And you’re right, they need treatment, they need help, they don’t need to be thrown in prison. And to be fair, why? I mean, the prosecutors are saying, oh, this is another tool for us to...
laura (10:39.47)
tool for us to fight crime and to stop the drug wars because Ohio has lax drug laws apparently compared to other states. I don’t know that for sure, but that’s what they’re saying here. Right.
chris (10:49.713)
Yeah, that’s what they always say. They’re always pounding the book long order. The legislature is supposed to bring some circumspection to this and say, okay, guys, I get it. You want to lock everybody up for the rest of time. Our job is to serve the citizens of Ohio. We have a lot of people that are addicted. We should be treating them. Instead, we’re going to start locking them. It’s just a dumb idea and hopefully it’ll get derailed in the Senate.
laura (11:12.714)
Right. And then they’re probably not going to get the help they need in prison. And like we said, these are overburdened prisons. We have too many people in there. We all pay for them with our taxes. We’re all going to pay for all the prosecutions. I mean, these Republicans that want to save money on all sorts of things would maybe think about the bottom line here, too. And the bottom line for people is this going to help the citizens of Ohio?
Lisa (11:24.361)
I just want to say, on all sorts of things, but maybe think about the bottom line here, too. And the bottom line is, is this going to help the physical?
chris (11:34.485)
Fred Flintstone approach to legislating. You’re listening to Today in Ohio. Where have all the students gone? In the first in a continuing series examining the crisis in Ohio higher education, reporter Lara Hancock examines why we have so much college classroom capacity in this state compared with a sharp drop in the available students. Lisa, what’s behind it all?
Lisa (11:58.981)
Well, we know the student body is dropping overall, and this is a nationwide problem. There’s declining enrollment. Fewer people are going to college. There’s slow population growth here in Ohio and an aging population. But the seeds of this were kind of sown 60 years ago. In 1962, Governor Jim Rhodes had his blueprint for brainpower. He wanted to have a public college or university within 30 miles of all Ohioans. So that resulted in the establishment since then.
of 14 public universities, 23 community colleges, 50 independent nonprofit schools, and 34 profit colleges. So from 2012 to 2022, enrollments at public colleges dropped 12% to 463 students now in Ohio. Senator Jerry Serino, who’s the chair of the Senate Workforce Higher Education Committee, says he really wants to ensure that colleges preparing for this demographic cliff and they should consider their physical foot
as online learning increases. And also, according to Mike Duffy, the chancellor of the Ohio Department of Higher Education says, student demand for online degrees is going up. They have non-traditional adult students who are working. They need class flexibility. And he also says we should encourage graduates in specialization fields like video game development, like at Shawnee State, and unmanned aircraft systems as at Sinclair Community College.
Duffy says, you know, for degrees, there are degrees that, I’m sorry, there are degrees, we’re granting degrees with not enough available jobs. And he says, there’s a risk of duplication of degree programs due to local control of many schools via the board of trustees or by county tax levies.
chris (13:49.513)
I was disappointed that Jerry Sorrento said he doesn’t want any of the schools to close because it seems like we do need some schools to close. One of the problems we have is with the shrinking number of available students, the colleges are all in a war to attract them. So they’ve spent money on all sorts of needless stuff to make themselves look attractive because they’re competing for the students. If we shrank the supply of classrooms...
Lisa (14:07.43)
Mm-hmm.
chris (14:18.193)
it would be the students competing for spots and we wouldn’t have to squander money on these unnecessary amenities and the schools could just be about educating. We have too many schools and the idea that we can keep them all open is not going to solve the problem. A more thoughtful approach would be, how can we combine, how can we merge, how can we shrink this so that it’s competitive to get in, not everybody’s begging the students to come here. I’m channeling Ted Dydon on our editorial board.
Lisa (14:30.129)
Mm-hmm.
chris (14:47.765)
He always says, why do they need rock walls? Why do they need rock climbing walls? But at the heart of what he’s saying, there’s a point. They’re spending a lot of money and getting into debt for things to compete for the students. That’s not the way it should work.
Lisa (14:53.969)
Right.
Lisa (15:00.273)
I will say there are a couple of bright spots. The University of Cincinnati enrollment actually has gone up 14% between 2012 and 2022. And also, Ohio draws more out-of-state students than it loses to other states. So there are some bright spots. But as you said, Chris, I think there’s gonna be a lot of, you know, separating the wheat from the chaff here in coming years. We’ve already seen Notre Dame is closing, Cleveland State has money problems, Lakeland Community College may be closing because they have financial issues.
So yeah, I think consolidation and proactive thinking is what we need to do.
chris (15:35.121)
I do think that the importation of students versus the people leaving the state will reverse quickly if the state keeps going down its ultra conservative way with what the people in the legislature are pushing. It’s not in step with Ohio. It’s becoming a seriously southern style political state. People won’t come here for that. So we’re looking at old statistics. If we look at that in five years, I wonder if that ratio remains.
You’re listening to Today in Ohio. Readers love this next story. The effort to replace a grocery store in Clevelandites has offered some rare insights into how retailers look for new digs. And some of it is not what residents want to hear. Leila, what makes for the ideal site?
Leila (16:21.385)
Sean McDonald brings us this story and it shows us that apparently grocers are very picky about where they open new locations. We’re learning about all this by seeing what the Russo family is going through. They own an empty grocery store in the Cedar Fairmount neighborhood, and they’ve been trying to find a tenant. So far, 19 grocers have said no. Only a national chain called Grocery Outlet is interested in this Cleveland Heights building.
and that deal would include spending $5 million in shared costs on renovations. Everybody else, from Aldi to Heinen’s, Giant Eagle, Walgreens, they’ve all passed up this building. Every grocer has its own nitpicky wish list, but there are some things that are common among all of their wish lists. One is the trade area, which defines where customers live and how far they’re willing to travel to visit a store. These vary in size, but the sweet spots apparently are a one.
three and five mile radius. The minimum is 10,000 people living in a trade area, but they also must be the right kinds of people. So for example, Trader Joe’s requires a large number of customers nearby with bachelor’s degrees. Many retailers want the average household income to be high. A super diverse neighborhood with people looking for international foods could be attractive to some grocers. And retailers also don’t want to be too close to competitors.
or to their other stores or too far away from their other stores for restocking purposes. Sitting on a main artery as far as traffic goes is important, but so is the direction that the traffic moves. If workers are commuting from University Circle, down Cedar Road to homes in the Eastside suburbs, taking a right turn into the grocer’s parking lot is easy, but if they’re commuting home the other way, that means taking a left turn.
and they’d be much less likely to go to that store apparently. Retailers also have size requirements. Grocers like Giant Eagle, Heinen’s, Dave’s Market, they all want stores closer to 50,000 square feet. A Walmart or a Meijer wants 150,000 square feet. Heinen’s was really the Russo’s top recruit. They really wanted them, but ultimately the chain would have had to spend $8 million to retrofit that space.
Lisa (18:22.855)
Thank you.
Lisa (18:27.593)
kids was really that the refusals have improved. They really wanted them, but ultimately, the chain wouldn’t have had this special chain and the connections in that space. I think the bill was going back down.
Leila (18:37.045)
Heinen’s could build a 45,000 square foot store in Chicago for about the same price. So Aldi and Amazon Fresh wanted to knock down the building and start over. And it just seems like it’s been a real hard time trying to find someone to fill it. It’s a hundred year old building, so it’s going to be a tough sell.
chris (18:55.574)
Yeah, I mean, we weren’t looking for a story about this battle because really this is a dumb battle. The reason Dave’s left is they moved into the Zagarra’s grocery store, which I’m pretty sure is less than a mile away. It’s very close. So it’s not like this is a food desert in any way, shape or form. This is a terrible location. It was horrible to go into. The parking was terrible. But what I loved about the memo that the Russo family released was it offered
Lisa (19:07.768)
Mm-hmm.
chris (19:23.045)
all that insight you just discussed about what goes into this kind of selection. And if you read this story closely, you got to be thinking, this isn’t going to happen. It’s not the right place for this kind of a store, even if some people in the neighborhood want it, but it puts it all together, puts some real perspective about what goes into this. I love the fact that Trader Joe’s was like, yeah, not, not our demographic. We don’t, we don’t want to be there.
laura (19:45.102)
Thanks for watching!
what he had about the container store that they wanted kids with like who are like 16 years old because they might be redoing their rooms and they have to go off to college so they need the dorm room stuff and also they wanted old houses because if you live in an old house which I do there’s not a lot of storage built in and you need solutions. I thought that was fascinating.
chris (20:07.777)
Yeah, it’s a great it was a great read. And I got some notes from readers saying, wow, this was fun to see what goes into this process. So nice job. You’re listening to Today in Ohio. Lisa, our editorial board called for this solution months ago. Now it’s happening. How do state and local leaders propose to resolve the warlike conflict between Strongsville and Brunswick over a proposed interstate 71 interchange?
Lisa (20:35.333)
The Ohio Department of Transportation and the Northeast Ohio Areawide Coordinating Agency will be hiring a consultant in September to develop a traffic congestion reduction plan for I-71 between Brunswick and Strongsville. It will take about two years to complete that study. It will determine if controversial interchange at Boston Road on the Stro border is the best option to reduce congestion on State Road 82, which is the next exit north.
They also want to look at potential alternatives between Pearl Road and State Road 303. And of course, Boston Road residents are furious about this. They’ve been fighting it for years because some homes may be taken by eminent domain. They’re worried about traffic and their way of life being ruined. Some opponents have suggested that they could have an interchange at either Drake or Shermer Roads. It would be a lot closer to 82 and away from them.
But lawmakers granted a request from Tom Patton, the Republican from Strongsville, that forced ODOT to build at Boston Road. Legislation to repeal that has been stalled in committee so far.
chris (21:47.141)
Right, but we’ve also talked that law probably is illegal because that’s not the way things work and the OACA has a big role and the feds have a role. What this always needed was cooler heads to get together and say, okay, we have a couple options on the table that people vigorously oppose. Let’s see if there’s another way. Let’s look at all the ways we might address this as thoughtful, intelligent people and maybe come up with option three that would be more palatable to everybody.
They’re finally doing that. That’s a great sign. Now let’s just hope they’re open-minded and successful.
Lisa (22:22.097)
Well, and Grace Galucci with NOAC, she says we really want community input. They’re gonna be very transparent. They’re gonna have the plans and have input. And they also wanna get a consensus. They don’t wanna impose a project that’s unwanted by a community, but I wonder what the people at Drake and Shermer Roads feel about it. I don’t know the area that well, but this has been a longstanding battle. They’ve been battling over it for decades. Brunswick developed that part of I-71 with big box stores and other stuff,
you know, Brunswick wanted to stay a little bit more rural, I guess.
chris (22:55.961)
Yeah, again, it’s going to take open minded people to sit down. So I hope people can leave the tempers outside the door. It’s a good development. You’re listening to Today in Ohio. We have noted regularly on this podcast in the past year just how in the bag for corporate interests, our state lawmakers are not even pretending anymore to work for the voters who put them in office.
Jake Zuckerman found a case in which a state senator may as well have been in the employment of the oil and gas industry when he made a speech. Laura, what did Jake tell us?
laura (23:28.598)
The industry wrote a sample script for this lawmaker, and he gave a speech on the Senate floor about the importance of natural gas as it being vital to Ohio’s economy. And this was a resolution. It doesn’t have any teeth. It doesn’t actually do anything. But State Senator Michael Rulely stood before this committee and absent some minor changes, reshuffling of some paragraphs, he made statements identical to what was sent to him by an industry lobbyist named Mitch Given.
So here’s a quote from Ruhle. He said, natural gas saves the average Ohio family $2,500 a year in energy costs, including $1,000 from its heating and appliances provided from natural gas. Givenhead wrote to him, it saves the average Ohio family $2,500 annually in total energy costs, including over $1,000 for home heating and appliances. Those are very, very similar statements. And this resolution did pass.
And soon after, the Empowerment Alliance, which is a pro-natural gas dark money organization that this lobbyist had represented in the past, released a video on social media featuring Senator Ruley that takes credit for a quote, another legislative win.
chris (24:37.817)
Yeah, we can’t say absolutely that he incorporated this into a speech, but it’s nearly identical. So what do you think? Which is terrible, right? I mean, you’re supposed to represent the voters, not the oil and gas industry. You want to hear something funny? We’ve been talking about the oil and gas industry a lot on this podcast, not in a good way. A regular listener sent me a note and said the advertising.
that’s been playing with the podcast is for the Petroleum Institute. I’m not sure that they want to be on this podcast. And I think there’s a pool of ads that are pulled in, but it just took me by surprise. I don’t think the Petroleum Institute is getting the bang for its buck by advertising on this podcast.
laura (25:20.302)
Probably not. And what’s really, I mean, there are so many very concerning issues about this story, but this lobbyist given had met with a bunch of county commissioners as a representative of that empowerment alliance, that dark money nonprofit. And they were backstage in drafting state legislation that legally redefined green energy to include natural gas. So we’re talking about one state senator making a speech on a resolution that has no legal weight other than saying, yay, natural gas.
But think about what else they’re doing and who else they’re meeting with all over the state.
chris (25:54.289)
Right. We’ve gone over and over it. They keep damaging the state to help these guys at the expense of the taxpayer. You’re listening to Today in Ohio. Did a colossal oopsie with the federal college forum spell the end for Richard Cordray as the head of the federal student aid office? Lela, why is he departing?
Leila (26:15.453)
Yeah, this is costing Cordray his job as the head of the Federal Student Aid Office, which he’s held that job since 2021. He told his employees that he will not stay on for another three year term. Cordray came under heavy fire in recent months after the botched rollout of the new FAFSA form, which was just plagued with delays and technical problems. During the soft launch, the form was only available for 30 minutes a day and there were tons of glitches and confusing questions. Some users reported.
getting repeatedly logged out before they could finish the form. Some school names were getting cut off of the FAFSA, which was confusing if a school you were interested in, you know, had multiple campuses. If you made a mistake on the form, you’d have to wait weeks to fix it. So it just sounds like it was a terrible pain in the butt for applicants. So he’s been under pressure to step down. And the chair of the Republican-headed House Committee on Education and the Workforce, Virginia Foxx, said that she’s pleased he took the hint.
She said, Cordray will be remembered for his ineffective leadership, blatant partisanship and his failures regarding FAFSA rollout and return to repayment. And then she said, she ended her statement by saying, Mr. Cordray, don’t let the door hit you on the way out. But that said, you know, education secretary Miguel Cardona had some kind words for him. He said Cordray accomplished more transformational changes to the student aid system than any of his predecessors. He applauded Cordray’s work fixing the broken student loan system programs like
public service loan forgiveness and income driven repayment. He identified four million borrowers who were eligible for loan forgiveness and he developed an affordable way for students to repay loans. He revitalized the FSA enforcement unit to fight student loan scams and to hold schools accountable for cheating students. So he had some accolades there despite this blemish that cost him in the end.
chris (28:04.361)
The sad thing is, is the FAFSA is something that nearly everybody applying to college fills out. So for a lot of American families, they have a tax form they have to fill out every year for the IRS, but there aren’t a whole lot of government forms they have to be involved with. But this is one, the idea of getting into college is a challenge for anybody that’s working with their kids on it. So screwing that up really affects a lot of people that just raise their hands and say, what is wrong with government? Can’t they get anything right?
Leila (28:29.025)
Mm-hmm.
chris (28:33.385)
This is one they should have gotten right.
Leila (28:36.685)
Yeah, it’s unfortunate because it does seem like he’s accomplished some other things. This was, though, the thing that touched the most lives, and I can see how it was his downfall.
chris (28:49.777)
Okay, you’re listening to Today in Ohio. Let’s do one quick one. Larry Householder is in a federal prison for his corruption conviction. But now he faces state corruption charges right here in Cuyahoga County. Laura, will he leave prison to deal with the local case?
laura (29:05.358)
No, good news for him. He doesn’t have to sit in the Cuyahoga County jail as he awaits this trial on the state charges. So his May 13 arraignment was via video stream from the federal prison in Elkton. He’s serving a 20-year sentence for bribery. He’s appealed that conviction saying there was no quid pro quo agreement. His behavior was legal under federal campaign finance law, which is what the argument is, right? This is just how we do business in Ohio. And as we detailed earlier on the podcast, it’s...
It has some ring of truth to it. But this is an indictment on theft in office, aggravated theft, telecommunications fraud, money laundering and tampering with records, all felonies.
chris (29:45.705)
When he gets the trial, he’ll be here, but this just saves all of the expense and aggravation of repeated back and forth traveling. It makes good sense. You’re listening to Today in Ohio. That’s it for the Monday episode. Check out our delinquent series. You will find it rewarding and we’ll be back tomorrow with another podcast. Thanks, Lisa. Thanks, Laura. Thanks, Leila. Thanks everybody who listens.