Is the State of Ohio going to help pay for the $2.4 billion stadium that Cleveland Browns ownership wants to build in Brook Park? 

A Cleveland City Council member posed a version of that question to a pair of state lawmakers at a council caucus meeting last week. Democratic state Reps. Bride Sweeney and Juanita Brent dropped by City Hall to update council members on efforts to shield homeowners from rising property taxes. 

Ward 16’s Brian Kazy saw an opening to throw out a Browns question: Will the upcoming state budget include money for professional sports stadiums? 

Sweeney – who was among lawmakers briefed by the Browns on a new stadium – didn’t say whether Gov. Mike DeWine’s office or state lawmakers were indeed queuing up money for the project. But if they were to do so, those dollars would likely be in next year’s budget proposal and not in the lame-duck session this year, she said. 

The Browns propose to split the $2.4 billion cost of a new stadium with the public. That means someone – maybe Cuyahoga County, the state or JobsOhio – would have to find a way to finance $1.2 billion. The team hasn’t publicly divulged how exactly the public and private costs would be shouldered. 

Michael Polensek of Ward 8 chimed in to say that someone should compensate Cleveland for the costs of demolishing the current stadium, if it comes to that. 

“We have to be made whole,” he said. “They cannot leave us holding the bag here in the City of Cleveland.”

On that point, Sweeney – the highest-ranking Democrat on the Ohio House Finance Committee – said she “100%” agrees.

Cuyahoga County Council recount

The Cuyahoga County Board of Elections today is recounting the narrow County Council race between Republican incumbent Jack Schron and Democratic challenger Robert Schleper Jr. 

Under Ohio’s rules, elections workers will recount a selection of precincts’ ballots by hand. They’ll also feed all of the ballots through the optical scanning machines again.

Schleper defeated Schron by 245 votes. If recent county history is any guide, the recount will affirm his win. Recounts rarely change the official vote totals, let alone the outcome of elections. 

In 2021, a winning Berea school board member gained one vote in a recount. A 2013 recount discovered that a ballot in Valley View had skewed results slightly across a few races. 

“It appears that a piece of dirt or debris was attached to the ballot as it was scanned causing the scanner to mistakenly detect votes,” the board’s recount summary said. 

In neither case did the discrepancies change who won. 

Schron’s council district, which winds along the southeast edge of the county, has been tilting Democratic. Mitt Romney won the cities now in Schron’s district with 50.1% of the vote in 2012. A dozen years later, Kamala Harris won those cities with 52.6%. 

Although Schron out-performed Donald Trump by almost 5 percentage points in the district, that wasn’t enough to win. Schleper claimed 50.2% of the vote. 

If the results stand, Schleper will become County Council’s first openly gay member. Democrats will hold all but one of the 11 council seats. Michael Gallagher will be the last Republican standing. 

One East Cleveland legal fight comes to an end

The Ohio Supreme Court in November put an end to one of the legal battles roiling East Cleveland’s government. The case revolved around a dispute over who was legitimately a member of the suburb’s City Council. 

There are twists and turns in the fight, but here are the basics: On one side were Nathaniel Martin and Mark McClain. Martin, a longtime council member, had been removed from office by a vote of his colleagues. Before his removal, he named McClain to fill a vacancy created by the recall of another council member. 

On the other side were Lateek Shabazz and Antwon Billings, whom other council members appointed to fill the two vacancies on the five-member body. 

In the decision, Ohio’s top court upheld a lower court ruling siding with Shabazz and Billings. The decision was a legal blow to Mayor Brandon King’s administration; East Cleveland’s law director had originally filed the case on behalf of Martin and McClain. 

That’s not the only East Cleveland issue pending in the courts. King is fighting charges brought by Cuyahoga County prosecutors that focus on his ties to city vendors.

And three retired judges appointed by the Ohio Supreme Court are deciding whether to remove King from office while the criminal case unfolds. They have not yet reached a final ruling.

Looming behind all the legal fights is a daunting financial reality. East Cleveland has spent the last 12 years in a state of fiscal emergency. That’s longer than any other local government on the state auditor’s list of active fiscal emergency cases. 

Sheriff’s deputies to work Trump’s 2025 inauguration

Cuyahoga County is sending 32 sheriff’s deputies to Washington, D.C., in January. They’ll be in the capital to help local police with security during Donald Trump’s second presidential inauguration. 

The county’s board of control signed off on the travel last week. The District of Columbia Metropolitan Police Department will reimburse the county for the trip, according to the board agenda. 

Cleveland police, on the other hand, don’t have City Council’s blessing to head out of town for the inauguration. Legislation to accept reimbursement for a D.C. trip hasn’t gone anywhere since being introduced in September.

It’s common for local police to seek help from law enforcement far and wide during major events. Those who attended the 2016 Republican National Convention in Cleveland may remember seeing police from all across the country in the mix with the event’s protesters, politicos and attention-seekers. 

Talking immigration and Trump’s second term

A top issue in the November election, including Ohio’s race for the U.S. Senate, immigration policy is at the heart of a Dec. 4 forum on the implications of President-elect Donald Trump’s second term. 

Global Cleveland, a nonprofit that advocates for immigrants, is sponsoring the forum with Cuyahoga County, the City of Cleveland and the Cleveland Metropolitan Bar Association. The event is billed as a “Post-Election Immigration Symposium” examining the legal challenges and “community dynamics” of immigration policies. Lawyers can also get Continuing Legal Education credits for attending. 

Cleveland native Gina Abercrombie-Winstanley, the former U.S. Ambassador to the Republic of Malta and former president of the Middle East Policy Council, is the keynote speaker of a morning session on the potential legal and political ramifications of Trump’s policies. (Signal Statewide’s Mark Naymik is moderating this discussion.) Other sessions include a panel talk on the economic impact of immigrants on the local and state economies. It features public officials and well-known attorneys. Read here for details on the symposium.