Surprise, surprise. Hordes of Ohio Turnpike drivers can’t understand the very confusing new tolling system: Today in Ohio (2024)

CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Ohio Turnpike drivers are confused by the highway’s new tolling system. So with customer service calls rising, the Turnpike suspended late fees and unpaid toll collections.

We’re talking about E-Z Pass not being easy for everyone 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 else we’re asking about today:

Why is the Ohio Turnpike, fresh off of starting its nearly impossible to understand tolling system, giving everyone a pass on late fees and penalties.

Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose has perpetrated so many misdeeds upon the people of this state that they don’t trust him. So when something arrives in the mail with his name of it, people are immediately suspicious. Why can people sigh with relief over the mailings they are receiving this week?

The number of times Ohio’s JD Vance has criticized the value of childless people keeps growing. What’s the latest comment to come back from his past?

Legal recreational marijuana is still relatively new, so we’ll keep tracking how much of it is selling each week for a while. How did week three of legal sales go?

Facebook Marketplace is an increasingly popular place for people to sell off unneeded household items, butthat popularity has a price. What happened with a couple of FacebookMarketplace sales in Akron, part of a growing trend?

A divided Ohio SupremeCourt issued a ruling Wednesday that has ramifications for anyone who takes a plea deal. It’s a great topic for discussion. Is the upshot that people should never enter a guilty plea to get a good deal if they believe they are innocent? What’s this one about?

We’ve heard for years that red meat is bad for us, but a new study that involved the Cleveland Clinic suggests that the digestion of red meat creates a handy marker for our future health. How does it work?

This took way too long. HadBrad Sellers finally been charged in the falsification of documents that gave him a nice windfall of cash?

The late artist Norman Rockwell’s not an Ohio guy, but a big collection of his paintings ended up here in a most unusual way. And soon, they will be gone. What’s the story aboutRockwell’s Boy Scout paintings being in Ohio, and why are they leaving?

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

Chris (00:00.856)

Surprise, surprise, surprise. That confusing Ohio Turnpike tolling system is confusing motorists. So much so that the Turnpike is going to stop assessing penalties for late paid bills. It’s the first story we’re talking about on Today in Ohio. It’s the news podcast discussion from cleveland .com and the Plain Dealer. I’m Chris Quinn here with Lisa Garvin, Leila Tasi and Laura Johnston. And Lisa, why is the Ohio Turnpike?

giving everyone a pass now on late fees and all the penalties they assess when they send them bills for skipped tolls.

Lisa (00:39.82)

Yeah, the Ohio Turnpike sent out 212 ‚000 invoices for late fees and other things. And then they got a wave of calls into their line and they call times were going up to 13 minutes to wait, now down to six minutes. So they’re still having some big call volumes there.

but they’re giving people who got these, so anyone who got a late fee bill, a collections bill or a registration hold from the Ohio BMV, that will be suspended until October 13th because they want to give people time to get used to this new tolling system and work on all the little kinks. And you can discuss it with customer services. If you have a question about your bill, you can contact them at www .easypassohio .com. But they did say that some of these problems

with EZPass holders might be because they’re not installing the transponder correctly. It should be on your windshield, but apparently some people are just waving it. They have it in their hand and they’re waving it at the toll booth and it’s not really working. So they’re saying install that transponder correctly and you will be billed correctly. If you’re not an EZPass holder, you have to drive through the correct toll lane and follow the overhead signs, take a ticket and you got to pay in cash or credit card as you exit.

Chris (01:59.232)

Okay, but if this many people are getting it wrong, then I blame the turnpike for not doing the instructions right. For many years, I think people did wave their transponder when they went through the old fashioned toll booths. Those overhead things now that people speed through don’t read it that way. But you probably needed to make it in big bold letters, hey, this won’t work the way you normally do it, make sure it’s here. If so many people are doing it wrong,

It’s the messenger, not the messagee that screwed up. And if people are in the wrong lanes, you got to think how well marked are the lanes. People aren’t stupid. If you give them clear directions, you know, a mile ahead, if you don’t have an easy pass, get in the right lane, people will do it. But how many times have you driven up on a turnpike toll where everything’s changed from the last time you were there? Those easy pass lanes in the tollbooths are never in the same place twice. And so

I blame the Turnpike commissioners, come on, 212 ‚000 times. Think about it. If you’re an EasyPass person and you think everything’s handled automatically and you get an invoice, you’re gonna be ticked. And on top of that, there are scam artists that realize this is going on and they’re sending fake invoices to people. So it’s a disaster. It’s the disaster we predict it would be. I think they need to a pause, a serious pause, go through the Turnpike like a user.

and think about it. Think about is it user friendly? Do what software designers never do. Use it as the user and see where the confusion might be and fix it.

Lisa (03:38.24)

Well, you’re a frequent Turnpike user. Do you have an EasyPass?

Chris (03:41.494)

I do have an easy pass. I and it’s on the windshield. We’ve always had him not one of those guys that waves it. But I have found that as you’re approaching the toll booth, you never know what lane you’re supposed to be in when you’re getting off. And there’s trucks and lots of cars there. And these things move around a lot. And it’s dumb. It’s like, why don’t you just have them set? In this case, I think it’s just the overhead things. People don’t realize how that gets read. But then make it clear, you know,

In the invoice, they should be sending clear instructions. They should say, you have an EZPass transponder, but it didn’t get read when you went through and we suspect that’s because it’s not mounted correctly. Here’s what you need to do to make sure it doesn’t happen again. I think people are just getting these bills. And then it’s the threat it goes to a collection agency and they’ll deny you the renewal of your tags because of the confusion they’ve created. Remember, this is a system now.

where the first, what is it, nine exits on either side, there’s no tolls, like you pay an entry fee to get onto the turnpike, that once you’re on for 50 miles, everything changes. It’s idiotic. They should have gone with the EZPass system and a camera system where everything’s automated instead of having people do it. And it does sound like from what they’re saying is people are so confused that they just drive through without paying and then they get the bill. This is the turnpike’s fault.

I’m glad that they’ve called the pause, but they need to go through this one more time and think about the user. We predicted this. We said this is beyond confusing.

Laura (05:14.199)

Well, the reason they didn’t go to that system that you’re talking about is because the number of Ohioans who have EZPass is they said it was not enough that they did the math and they still needed to have these people work at the gates. But how is this helping you get more EZPass users if you can’t make the EZPass experience easy? And I drive the turnpike quite often in the summer when we go up to Canada. I don’t have my stuff mounted on, but I take it out.

fast enough. That’s the thing. You don’t wait till you get up to the booth to use your transponder. It gets you way back when you’re first getting into the line. So you have to have that out plenty of time. But you’re right. You should be mounting them. But I’m saying that’s not the only problem here. And they’re not making it user friendly. So why would anybody want to get the easy pass? Which will improve the system. If everybody had an easy pass, it would be better.

Chris (05:54.698)

Well, according it’s not gonna

Yeah, it’s a

Chris (06:11.118)

Yeah, but be clear when you’re going super fast through those high scanning lanes, do need, yeah, you, you, need that to be on the window, but it, it, it surprised, can you imagine too, you get the invoice and you’re on hold for 14 minutes. You’d want to scream, man. So screwed up.

Laura (06:14.155)

Yeah, and I don’t have to do those. That’s the thing.

Laura (06:28.523)

It’s like dealing with the unemployment office during the pandemic, right?

Chris (06:31.87)

Yeah, what a mess. You’re listening to Today in Ohio. Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose has perpetrated so many misdeeds upon the people of this state that nobody trusts him. So when something arrives in the mail with his name on it, people are immediately suspicious. Laura, why can people sigh with relief over the mailings they are receiving this week?

Laura (06:53.795)

Because if you are a registered voter in Ohio, one of about 8 million, you are getting an application to request an absentee ballot, otherwise known as an early voting ballot. So this is not a ballot. You have to fill it out and send it back if you would like a ballot. If you want to vote regularly or you want to go to your board of elections and vote early, you don’t need to do anything with this. But the number of people that have been voting absentee by mail

in the past few elections has been gradually ticking up. I think there were 3 .5 million people in 2020. I expect it to be the same or higher now. So this is legit. There is an agreement that the state reached in 2012 to send out an even numbered general elections. They send this to everyone. And that actually happened because of a fight that then Secretary of State John Husted had with then County Executive Ed Fitzgerald. So

You can thank Fitzgerald for making sure everybody gets a ballot application.

Chris (07:54.826)

It is instructive though that as people receive these, we’re getting the emails saying, what’s the scam here? Is this an effort to get more Republicans to vote? What’s he up to? Because everything he has done in recent years has been to skew votes. His biggest sin of late is calling the anti -gerrymandering ballot amendment something that would gerrymander. It’s an outright lie that he has put into the official language on the ballot.

Laura (08:01.313)

right.

Chris (08:23.96)

So nobody trusts this guy and they shouldn’t trust this guy because he generally is doing the wrong thing. In this case, we have to assure people that you’re right to be suspicious of him because he’s a bad guy. But in this case, it’s okay to use this to get your ballot. Hilarious that the suspicions are so high, but a good sign, right? It tells you people in Ohio are awake to the bad deeds people like Frank LaRose are committing.

Laura (08:50.083)

Yes, people are paying attention. And when I got mine, I didn’t remember. It happens so infrequently. Like every two years is not super regular, right? So I was like, did my husband request this ballot application for me? Because he’s done that in the past. And I’m like, why did this show up with my name on it? So no, everybody’s getting it. You didn’t have to fill out anything. But if you do want to vote it, you’ve got to send it back. They’ll start mailing you your ballots on October 8.

That’s the day after the voter registration deadline. So if you haven’t registered to vote, you are still capable of doing that until October 7th. Now these are not prepaid postage. So you do need to put stamps on them. Generally, it’s one stamp to get your ballot. And then once you get your ballot and email that back in, that’s going to be two stamps.

Chris (09:33.622)

Yeah, this makes the argument that we ought to do this with every primary and general election. This just should be standard, a part of the state’s way of doing business to only do it and even number general election years is strange. If you’re trying to get out the vote, why not do it with every election? You’re listening to Today in Ohio. The number of times that Ohio’s JD Vance has criticized the value of childless people

keeps growing. It’s an astounding attack on people that we’ve really never seen before. Lela, what’s his latest comment to come back from his past?

Leila (10:10.489)

Those comments just continue to spark backlash for Vance. This one was from October of 2021 during a GOP Senate candidate forum. Vance took a shot at American Federation of Teachers head Randy Weingarten, who identifies as a mother by marriage. Vance argued that people without children like Weingarten are trying to brainwash America’s kids. He went as far as to say, if she wants to brainwash and destroy the minds of children,

Lisa (10:15.079)

This one is from October.

Leila (10:39.609)

She should have some of her own and leave ours the hell alone. Winegarden fired back on social media as she called Vance’s comments gross and insulting to modern families and educators. But Vance isn’t backing down. When he was questioned about his remarks, he stood by them. He framed his words as a sarcastic critique of what he sees as the left’s anti -family agenda. Those remarks in October 21 came just a few months after

Lisa (10:43.574)

Hmm.

Leila (11:06.169)

a July, 2021 appearance on Tucker Carlson’s Fox News show where he discussed a speech he previously made that criticized the childless left for lacking a physical commitment to this country. So Vance says he’s just a normal guy who says sarcastic things that some people disagree with. And that’s how he is.

Lisa (11:18.827)

Hmm.

Chris (11:26.368)

Yeah, but he has a worldview on women that’s becoming crystal clear that they’re basically baby factories. And he’s actually said the role of the grandmother, postmenopausal women, their role, take care of the grandchildren. It’s like the only value for the three of you is your value in taking care of children. It’s bizarre to have that worldview in this century. I just can’t imagine a whole lot of women are going to embrace that.

Leila (11:33.699)

Mm -hmm.

Lisa (11:37.889)

Mm -hmm.

Chris (11:55.0)

thought and he he just keeps doubling down now he’s trying to divert attention from it now by by doing things like saying that our Democratic presidential candidate should go to hell something he claimed yesterday but I just don’t understand his strategy here he’s alienating massive numbers of people.

Leila (12:15.063)

Yeah. mean, his view on women, guess, is a step up from his running mate’s view on women, which is, you know, for sexual exploitation, apparently. But it’s interesting how Vance is such a troll, but he’s, he’s kind of discovering that he’s just not that good at it as Trump is. I mean, if Trump had made this childless cat lady comment, it would have just

blended into the tableau of every other despicable, outrageous thing he’s ever said. We wouldn’t even be talking about it anymore because everyone accepts that Trump is just a garbage human, but I guess we expect more from his running mate.

Laura (12:52.685)

Well, don’t you think though that he’s talking so much about family and he’s saying he’s doing this for the family values? Well, then where is his ideas to help families? Like where is it’s childcare proposals? Where are his priorities to make it easier to have kids in this country? It’s all criticism, but it seems like it’s only about women and we should be taking care of the babies.

Chris (13:16.984)

Look, he’d be a heartbeat away from being the president. I can’t imagine why any woman would vote for this ticket. mean, he’s until very recently wanted to completely outlaw abortion and force women to have babies because that’s what it’s about. And then he has all of these comments he’s made where he really views the only purpose of women is to pump out children. Why would any woman vote for him?

Leila (13:41.949)

washed by the patriarchy. I mean, and we’ve talked about this before. I mean, I think there are women, lots of women who vote against their own interests, lots of women who have benefited from the patriarchy for their whole lives. So between those groups, I think that’s where they come from.

Chris (13:44.132)

Hahaha.

Laura (13:54.221)

Mm -hmm.

Chris (14:00.61)

You can’t say he’s hiding it. He’s putting it all out there so people know exactly what they’re getting from this guy. Staggering that these revelations are continuing to come out months or more than a month after he was named as the vice presidential candidate. You’re listening to Today in Ohio. Legal recreational marijuana is still relatively new, so we’ll keep tracking how much of it is selling each week for a while. Lisa, did week three of legal sales go?

Lisa (14:29.26)

Actually, it’s been trending downward since we started recreational sales on August 6th. So week three of sales was just under $10 .5 million. That was down from $10 .9 million on week two and $11 .5 million on the first week, which started August 6th. So in total, since we’ve had recreational marijuana, there have been 410 ,987 receipts worth $33 million.

medical marijuana sales have stayed pretty much steady since this started, around $7 .6 million a week. So the price of flour is going down very slightly. One ounce of flour is now down to an average of $258 .70. That was down from the high the previous week of $266 .70. If you’re buying manufactured products like oils, vapes, gummies, and so forth,

The average price for that is about $31 .57 and that stayed pretty steady throughout.

Chris (15:32.474)

Here’s a question from Naive Chris who’s not part of this world. Is this because probably people stock up? It’s not like they go to the marijuana store like they go to a grocery store regularly to get their food. That if they go in they’re getting more than a week supply and so they don’t make return visits for longer periods?

Lisa (15:52.63)

That could be true. mean, I know when I bought some at one, I went to two dispensaries in the first couple of days and one of them said, and it was like, you know, like a 10th of an ounce say, this is a two day supply. said, not for me. But yeah, I, and I think that people are probably looking at the prices in Ohio. If they’re close enough to Michigan, they’re going to say, I’m going to go to Michigan. And there’s a lack of product. I mean, they don’t have pre -rolls. They don’t have any of that other stuff. So we’ll see.

Chris (16:19.254)

Well, and there is some rigor moral going in. It’s not like you just dash into the store, pick up your product and pay it to cashier. You have to go in. If it works like it works in Michigan, they check who you are. They verify things. Then you go through a door and you get, you know, direct service from somebody. So it’s a little bit of a tedious process, right?

Lisa (16:23.509)

Mm -mm.

Lisa (16:40.36)

It is, and I did not like the two dispensaries that I went through because you could not see the product before you bought it. It was not on display and I’m going to try and find, I know there are dispensaries that actually weigh it in front of you. I need to find one of those.

Chris (16:54.414)

When I visited the Michigan dispensary with somebody that was getting some product there, everything was on display. was very, I felt like, well, I really, my comparison really was like the Macy’s perfume counter. I mean, it just felt like that kind of a sales operation was enlightening. You’re listening to Today in Ohio.

Lisa (17:01.706)

Yeah, and California too.

Chris (17:16.002)

Facebook marketplace is an increasingly popular place for people to sell off unneeded household items, but the popularity seems like it comes with the price. Laura, what happened with a couple of Facebook marketplace sales in Akron that’s part of a growing trend?

Laura (17:31.011)

Yeah, there are two separate robberies that involve marketplace and they were a couple miles from each other, but not considered related. So the first robbery was on Tuesday at 2 30 in the afternoon. A 24 year old man wanted to or a 24 year old man had an ATV he wanted to sell in South Akron. Three buyers arrived. One of them robbed him at gunpoint and left with the ATV. The others fled on foot. So they saw product they wanted on Facebook marketplace.

and they went to supposedly buy it but stole it instead. And then 15 minutes later, there was a 17 -year -old that they found riding that stolen ATV. So he was arrested. Two other people are still being searched for. And then there was a second robbery near the zoo in Akron. The person had arranged to sell a PlayStation 5, but when the buyer paid for it through cash app, the seller pulled out a handgun and told him to leave. So that’s like the opposite here. This isn’t the buyer coming.

and stealing it, was the seller refusing to give it over. But this is worrisome because Facebook Marketplace has been basically the way to get rid of stuff that you don’t want. There’s a lot of porch pickups. You leave it on your porch, you trust someone to come get it, but you’re giving them your address and you never know who’s at the other end of that exchange. You can look them up on Facebook.

but there’s no guarantees. And that’s why police say, look, we have a safe space at the police department. If you want to do these transactions, do it in front of our station. We have cameras and that way you’ll be safe.

Chris (19:04.8)

Right. I’m dating myself here, but I remember a similar rash of things happening with, think it was Craigslist. When Craigslist really came into the fore, you had lots of crimes. And so the police were very quick to say, come here, come, come do it in front of us. You won’t have a problem if you do that. And a lot of people took advantage of it because they didn’t want people coming to their houses and they didn’t want to get held up at gunpoint. I’m surprised that

Laura (19:10.957)

Mm -hmm.

Laura (19:16.909)

Mm -hmm.

Chris (19:28.46)

with Facebook Marketplace, people haven’t automatically done that because you don’t know these people. Why would you trust them not to be bombs?

Laura (19:36.279)

I think it’s just because people are lazy. It’s just easier to do it at your house. I’ve got to say, I’ve bought kids’ bikes. I’ve sold so many things this way. I’ve never had a problem. But you’re right. You just never know. And you’re like, well, it’s in a good area. Like, I’m going by myself or with my kid. It’s not a good idea. I should not be doing it.

Leila (19:56.343)

I think Facebook marketplace creates kind of a false sense of security because you can see that it’s you think it’s a real person based on the fact that they have a Facebook profile. feels like it’s not so anonymous and that there’s a connection to a real human. But I think that’s, you know, I think that’s that’s not that’s not real security.

Lisa (20:00.352)

Mm -hmm.

Mm -hmm.

Chris (20:16.396)

Okay, you’re listening to Today in Ohio. Divided Ohio Supreme Court issued a ruling Wednesday that has ramifications for anyone who takes a plea deal. It’s a great topic for discussion, Lela. What’s it about?

Leila (20:30.137)

Clark refused to hear the case of Lamont Clark, a Cleveland man who says he was coerced into pleading guilty to a crime he didn’t commit. Clark was originally sentenced to life in prison in 1993 for the death of his wife, Tanya Banks, but years later was discovered that crucial evidence had been withheld from his defense. Despite this, Clark ended up pleading guilty to a lesser charge of involuntary manslaughter after prosecutors offered him the chance to walk free and see his critically ill mother.

And now Clark wants to withdraw that plea. He’s arguing that he was pressured into admitting to something he didn’t do, but the Ohio Supreme Court decided not to take up his case with four justices refusing to hear it while three dissented from that opinion strongly. The majority declined to provide specific reasoning for the refusal to take up the case. And that’s not uncommon in such decisions where the court simply chooses not to hear a case without providing any detailed explanations.

But the dissenting opinion was written by Justice Michael Donnelly and it was supported by Justices Jennifer Bruner and Melody Stewart. And it provides a really clear window into the complexities and concerns surrounding this case. Donnelly’s dissent strongly criticized the way Clark’s plea deal was handled. He described the situation as insidious. And he argued that Clark was pressured into pleading guilty to a crime that wasn’t even pending against him.

avoid the embarrassment prosecutors might face if a new trial had revealed his potential innocence. Donnelly was particularly troubled by the ethical violations in this case, specifically the fact that evidence that could have proven Clark’s innocence was deliberately withheld by the prosecution during the original trial and that led to Clark’s wrongful conviction and decades of imprisonment. So Donnelly emphasized that the plea deal let prosecutors sidestep accountability for their previous misconduct while leaving Clark with this

devastating decision of either returning to prison indefinitely or pleading guilty to a crime he said he didn’t commit. And in Donnelly’s view, this case represented a total miscarriage of justice and the Supreme Court’s refusal to hear it only compounded that problem.

Chris (22:36.819)

Yeah, I think this is not as clear cut as you’re describing it. He did get the chance for a new trial because the prosecutors had terribly misbehaved. And he had a choice to go the mat, go to the mat, prove his innocence. But he made the choice to go into court and say, I’m guilty, so he could get out of jail immediately. But he did go into court.

Leila (22:57.719)

Mm -hmm.

Chris (23:03.072)

and say, I’m guilty of his own free will. And I can understand why the justices are saying, look, you made the choice. You may regret that choice now, but it doesn’t change the fact you made the choice. He knew what the new evidence was. He knew that if he went to trial, he could use that evidence to try and clear his name, but he chose not to. And I’m not, I’m not buying what the dissenters are saying here. are.

Leila (23:26.327)

I don’t know, man. The pressure of feeling like you’re going to end up that that trial could go sideways and you end up in prison for the rest of your life or something that you did not do.

Chris (23:38.466)

that could happen every time you’re charged with a crime. The key to me is don’t plead guilty if you’re not guilty. mean, I think people with character and integrity say, I’ll take what comes because I’m not going to say that I did something that I didn’t do. He chose to do that. That was his choice made completely of his free will. And now he regrets it. And I think the justices are saying, look, you have the chance. You got the new trial.

Leila (23:41.153)

Yeah, but he gets a, okay, go ahead.

Chris (24:07.926)

You could have seen this through, you chose not to, you don’t get to change your mind now.

Leila (24:13.315)

Well, when I when I covered courts years ago, there was one case that really stuck with me. This young guy was accused of participating in a pretty vicious beating with a group of other kids. And they all pled guilty except for this one who said he just happened to be with them when they jumped to this guy. And he said he was appalled and didn’t participate and was trying to get these guys off this guy.

His was the only case that went to trial and his lawyers persuaded him to plead guilty in exchange for a lesser sentence even though he maintained his innocence. But when it came time for him to express contrition to the court during that hearing, he said again that he didn’t commit the crime. So the judge rejected that plea and the trial continued and he was found guilty and the judge punished him mightily. He got more years in prison than any of his co -defendants who took the deal and had agreed to testify against this kid.

So I don’t know what the right answer is if I were in that situation. I considering that case and this Supreme Court ruling, I’d say that if you’re innocent, you’re damned if you take the plea and you’re damned if you don’t.

Chris (25:14.656)

Yeah, but keeping your name clear does count for something. so fighting to clear your name seems like the more noble thing to do. I said it was a good case for discussion. It was. You’re listening to Today in Ohio. We’ve heard for years that red meat is bad for us, but a new study that involved the Cleveland Clinic suggests that the digestion of red meat creates a handy marker for our future health. We say, how does this work?

Lisa (25:38.819)

Yeah, very interesting stuff. So a research team headed by Dr. Stanley Hazen in Cleveland Clinic’s Lerner Research Institute in collaboration with Tufts University, they did a study where they followed 12 ,000 people for 16 years. And what they were doing is they were taking tests to see the levels of a microbiome in the gut that is known as TMAO. TMAO forms when the gut bacteria digest red meat and other animal products.

So higher TMAO levels may lead to higher risk of heart failure. And this is independent of other risk factors, which is really, really interesting. They said that, you know, in their evaluations of these 20 ‚000 TMAO tests they did during the study, was, the readings were consistent across gender, age, race, ethnicity, body mass index, renal function. So it sounds like it’s a.

Pretty good biomarker. In their 12 ‚000 people that they followed for the 16 years, they had 2 ,102 cases of heart failure that was predictable. So what they’re doing now, Dr. Hazen says, hopefully we can someday have drugs to target this TMAO pathway. And the team is trying to develop treatment options as we speak.

Chris (26:54.498)

Although that would imply that it’s a cause and not just a symptom. I would love to get the TMAO test now because it seems like it’s a good marker of what’s going to happen next. Good study, good thing to talk about. You know, listening to Today in Ohio, this took way too long, Leila. Has Brad Sellers finally been charged in the falsification of documents that gave him a nice windfall of cash? Something that we brought to the public almost two years ago.

Leila (27:23.961)

Yeah, Sellers has been charged. He’s facing two misdemeanor charges, petty theft and tampering with evidence. These stem from actions he took six years ago that, like you said, reporter Kaitlin Durbin brought to light a couple years back. And here’s the story. Back in 2018, Sellers granted himself a 100 % tax abatement on his home, which sounds like a great deal, except there was a pretty big problem with this. At the time, he was more than $13 ,000 behind on his property taxes.

a fact that he conveniently left out when he signed a notarized document claiming that he was debt free. And Ohio law is pretty clear on this. You can’t make false statements on legal documents, especially not to secure financial perks like a tax abatement. And this situation unraveled thanks to Caitlin’s investigation of it, which revealed that Sellers pushed for this 15 year tax break, even though he didn’t meet the qualifications. And it wasn’t just a slip up. Sellers went on to certify the abatement himself.

after getting it approved by the city council despite knowing he was still in debt. So fast forward to now after this two year investigation by the Ohio Ethics Commission and the Summit County Prosecutor’s Office, Sellers is scheduled to appear in court on September 18th. He’s kept a pretty low profile so far, but these charges, they’re a big deal, especially for someone who’s been in public office since 2012.

mean, what’s also interesting is that Sellers has continued to serve on several public boards throughout this investigation. It remains to be seen if it’ll hold on to those roles as the case unfolds. But this raises questions about accountability in public office and whether officials are held to the same standards as everyone else when it comes to the law, because how does something so serious end up with misdemeanors?

Chris (29:03.564)

Well, but it goes beyond that. I we did all the work that we had the actual records. There’s no doubt about it. He signed documents that had a big lie in them. And it went to the Ethics Commission, which took a year. What did they do for a year? They had the whole case took him a year. They finally send it to the prosecutor’s office. Michael Maui’s office recused itself because of political connections, I guess. It went to the Summit County Prosecutor’s Office.

Leila (29:17.945)

All right, it was gift wrapped for him.

Chris (29:29.922)

where there was a delay because the longtime Summit County prosecutor got very sick after having COVID, ended up having to resign to go take care of herself and the transition that got lost. none of this makes any sense. If you were I did this, this would have been immediately taken in to a grand jury. They would have immediately figured out what they’re going to do. There wouldn’t be a year long analysis of it. The records showed exactly what happened. I think it’s special treatment because he’s an elected official, which

isn’t supposed to happen in America. We’re all equal under the eyes of the law. And this guy’s been dancing around for almost two years, even though the evidence was clear, he broke the law.

Leila (30:00.153)

Mm -hmm.

Leila (30:09.773)

Right. And in the meantime, being reappointed to his positions that he holds in the community.

Chris (30:12.301)

Yeah.

Yeah, Chris Ronane did that, right? Chris Ronane reappointed him to the... No, it was this year. He just got reappointed this year. How do you do that? How do you justify reappointing him when he’s under investigation and the records were so clear? It’s like a... Look, I say it all the time. The Democrats in Cuyahoga County are as bad as the Republicans in the state house. There’s no difference. They’re all...

Leila (30:18.413)

You know, I don’t know if that was pre -Ronane. Might have been during Buddhist. okay. Huh.

Chris (30:40.588)

Like this big group of people that are in the club, wink, wink, nudge, nudge, Brad, it’ll be okay. Whereas if regular people did this kind of stuff, there’s no way they’d be allowed to serve on public boards. They’re giving special treatment to him because he’s an elected Democratic official, and it’s just wrong. Yeah, yeah, I know. The whole thing just shows you how bad our elected system is right now. The one party rule.

Leila (30:57.687)

and a former NBA player.

Chris (31:08.064)

is decimating Cuyahoga County on the Democratic side, it’s decimating Columbus on the Republican side. We got to get rid of partisan primaries. We just got to get rid of them and hopefully go to rank choice voting because we can’t clean up this house when things like this happen. How he gets reappointed in the middle of this scandal is inexcusable. And yet it happens and everybody’s wink, wink, nudge, nudge. You’ll be fine.

Leila (31:13.689)

Mm -hmm.

Chris (31:33.112)

You’re listening to Today in Ohio. That’s it for the Thursday episode. Thanks Lisa. Thanks Laila. Thanks Laura. Thank you for listening. Friday will wrap up the weekend news.