Newsmaker: Eric Gordon, CEO, Cleveland Metropolitan School District
School leaders hope voters will approve a 15-mill property tax levy when they go to the polls next month. It’s something voters haven’t done since 1996. Unlike 1996, northeast Ohio is still mired in a sluggish recovery from a long recession and school enrollment has dropped to 41,000. In another key difference from 1996, the Ohio Supreme has since declared the state’s school funding formula unconstitutional, a fact levy opponents are citing as a reason to vote no.
Roundtable: Laura Johnston, reporter, The Plain Dealer; Bill Sheil, weekend anchor, Fox 8 News; Bill Livingston, sports columnist, The Plain Dealer.
Second Fiddles in Concert
Vice-presidential candidates Joe Biden and Paul Ryan staged their only debate Thursday night at Centre College in Danville, Kentucky. They traded jabs over topics as diverse as the economy and the incident at the U.S. embassy in Libya. Pundits divided along ideological lines when it came to identifying a winner, but the outcome of past VP debates did little to shift public opinion. Focus is now on the next Presidential debate Tuesday night.
Cooking up a Controversy
Cuyahoga County will build a new kitchen to feed the inmates housed at the county jail. At $6.4 million, the new kitchen will cost nearly a million dollars more than a contract the county rejected last year as too expensive.
New Chief for the Indians
Terry Francona takes over as manager of the Cleveland Indians. The son of former Indian Tito Francona has the job of turning around a franchise that hasn't had a winning season since 2007. Francona spent eight years as manager of the Boston Red Sox where his teams won two World Series and dispensed with the Curse of the Bambino. Now he gets to work on the Curse of Rocky Colavito.
Sandusky to Prison
Ex-Penn State assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky was sentenced to as much as 60 years in prison for the sexual abuse of 10 boys while he worked in the Penn State program. Sandusky maintained his innocence in a 15-minute statement in court prior to his sentencing. Sandusky’s crimes ended the career of the legendary head coach Joe Paterno and the university’s president. Both were accused of looking the other way while the abuse continued.