CLEVELAND, Ohio — University Hospitals CEO Dr. Cliff Megerian, Cleveland Clinic Chief of Staff Dr. Beri Ridgeway and MetroHealth CEO Akram Boutros on Wednesday stressed the importance of collaboration for solving the region’s health disparities.
We’re talking about how they collaborate on issues including lead poisoning, infant mortality, maternal health and food deserts on Today in Ohio.
Listen online here. See the automated transcript at the bottom of the post.
Editor Chris Quinn hosts our daily half-hour news podcast, on Wednesday with city hall reporter Courtney Astolfi, editorial board member Lisa Garvin 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 for free by sending a text to 216-868-4802.
Here are the questions we’re answering today:
How does the head of MetroHealth say health officials are failing to live up to their promises of equity?
How many people want to be part of Cleveland’s new and very powerful Cleveland police commission, the civilian board that will oversee the police discipline process?
Ohio’s Republican legislative leaders did everything they could to avoid their Constitutional duties in drawing maps. Are they using the same tactics now to avoid having a marijuana initiative on the November ballot?
Why was the arrival of a ship in Cleveland this week a big deal?
How did a recent fire in Brooklyn illustrate the challenges that fire departments are having in being fully staffed?
What is the allegation that has launched an investigation into the Medina County treasurer and a county car that ended up in the position of his son?
Why might Joe Blystone, the failed candidate for Ohio governor, be in some trouble?
How is the market for used cars about to cost Euclid big with one of its biggest employers?
What is the Rocking the RV Life podcast, and how is it now connected to cleveland.com?
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Read the automated transcript below. Because it’s a computer-generated transcript, it contains many errors and misspellings.
Chris: [00:00:00] We’re going to have to do a story on the return of dirt bikes to Cleveland streets to hear television reporters tell it it’s the end of society. As we know it. And the Justin Bibi administration will crack down it’s today in Ohio, the news podcasts discussion from cleveland.com and the plain dealer.
I’m Chris Quinn. And I am here with Lisa Garvin, Layla Tassie, and Lauren. Then Laila, the dirt bike problem is, is a fascinating one because people get annoyed when they’re at the intersection and the kids are out there. Circling police don’t want to chase little kids on dirt bikes because there’s a chance that they’ll hurt themselves or die.
And who wants that on their, on their conscience. But television news reports get the video when they painted as hooligans taking over the streets. And the vivid administration is talking about cracking downs. We’re going to have to look at how do you do that?
Leila: Yeah. You know, I, I’m not exactly sure what approach the bibs administration is going to take.
And I mean, to be clear, I don’t think they’re little kids. I think, you know, I think they’re, they’re older and young adults and things [00:01:00] like that, but this has been in the con you know, we’ve been having this conversation for several years. Frank Jackson tried to approach this, uh, you know, in his way. He tried to bring this, uh, you know, this group of, of young people to the table.
He tried to create a sort of, sort of formalize a, tried to create a place for them to engage in their sport. Right. He tried to create their dirt bike tracks so that they could learn how to maintain their bikes and how to, you know, create a safe Haven for them to go and, and practice and, and, and ride.
And that just sort of fell apart because of. Pick the absolute worst place in a neighborhood for people you create lots of noise and
Chris: not a place where you can yeah. The dirt by tracking an area, it was a dumb idea. But the idea of talking to them instead of slamming them, I mean, yeah, you’re right.
They’re teenagers, they’re young adults and their joy riding. You know, that, the other thing that I note is there are bicycle groups that do the same thing. Nobody complains [00:02:00] about them. I do.
Lisa: I absolutely do. I hate those hordes of bicycle. Isn’t just run through the intersection. Like they own it, you know?
And the thing with the dirt bike riders is, yeah. They’re going to tear through your neighborhood. I’m going to last about 10 seconds, you know, I mean, I have the same problem with the guy around the corner who drives through every day with his bass on this, you know, speakers rattling my windows, but he’s gone in 10 seconds.
So what the heck? Well, yeah,
Leila: there’s a lot of parallels you can draw between the two groups. And I think there, you know, you can raise the question about, uh, about race here, right? I mean, Because, like you said, the bicyclists who they call it a critical mass bike ride because there’s so many of them that they feel they have the right to tie up traffic while they pass through.
And you’re sitting there at the light, just see thing while they’re all cruising on by for about 10 minutes. I mean, that is. You know, that’s an inconvenience to people on the road, just as much as a big group of people on their dirt bikes.
Chris: So it’s not the end of [00:03:00] society. As we know it. It’s not Armageddon.
It’s not the breathless reporting subjects of television news reports. You know, it’s an issue it’s. Life in the city. Uh, it’ll be interesting to
Leila: see. Well, and also you don’t, you don’t see any legislation coming across that’s banning that sort of stuff. Instead, you see bike, bike advocates coming to city council to, you know, try to speak on behalf of bike safety and how can we work with the city to make sure that we have the right to blah, blah, blah, blah, you know?
Right. So, um, you know,
Chris: this, isn’t what we came here to talk about today. We will talk about this in the future. Let’s begin. How does the head of Metro health say health officials are failing to live up to their promises of equity. Laura, this was a gathering of some of our top health officials yesterday, and they had some interesting things to
Laura: say they did.
I was really, I learned something from Julie Washington story. Not that I know specifics because Akron Boutros did not name names on [00:04:00] people who are not fulfilling their promises. What he was referring to is a 20 19 6. Speech. He gave about public health, health crises talking about how structural racism and childhood trauma create all of these problems.
And he got commitments from, you know, place, I assume, businesses and community groups that they would work on this. He says they’re dragging their feet on promises they made, and he’s not getting, uh, the declarations of support he expected. And they’re slipping very quickly in the past six months. But some progress is being made and his main focus.
Along with the university hospital CEO, Dr. Cliff material and clinic Cleveland clinic, chief of staff, Dr. Barry Ridgeway was basically talking about why public health matters as part of this, uh, accelerating health equity conference that was sponsored by the American hospital association.
Chris: Well, it wasn’t just health officials that came out of the woodwork after the Floyd killing, it was every company [00:05:00] came out of the woodwork, their statements, their God, we were getting press releases by the dozen about how we’re going to change everything.
It’d be interesting to go back and see, did they do anything? It’s one thing to issue a statement. It’s another to change the culture. Did anybody actually changed their culture?
Laura: Completely agree that it’s night, you know, it’s, it’s pretty easy to put out a press release. It’s very difficult to change the way that you do business.
And with these three healthcare leaders talked about were issues like lead poisoning, infant mortality, maternal health, food deserts, things. Normally see, like as a hospital issue and they pointed to some projects that they’ve worked on, um, like the rainbow babies and children’s, uh, who’s a center for women and children, which is located in an area of Cleveland with high infant mortality.
And they talked about how they are working together more than they ever have been. They’ve built trust. And obviously they are competitors. I mean, Look at like Brecksville Broadview Heights, you know, on one exit off of 77, there’s a giant Metro health at a [00:06:00] giant EWH facility. They are competitors, but they are working together on these public Heights, health crises.
And I really liked what Ridgeway said. He said a hospital can use groundbreaking medicine to treat a patient for heart disease. But if that person returns to a neighborhood where groceries come from a gas station that patient’s going to have to be readmitted, you have to solve the health disparities for it to be a sustainable system.
And yeah, we can talk about all the great research we have at our giant hospitals. But if we don’t solve the issues in these daily lives, we’re not getting to the heart of the.
Chris: And this affects a huge number of people. It’s our biggest employment sector. And obviously lots of people go to those hospitals.
So it’s probably the majority of our population that’s affected by what they’re talking about. You’re listening to today. How many people want to be part of Cleveland’s new and very powerful Cleveland police commission, the civilian board that will oversee police discipline Layla. They’re going to stand up and push in all sorts of directions.
There’s talk that they want to look at the way [00:07:00] police conduct surveillance. I wouldn’t be surprised if they didn’t look at the way police might be trying to enforce rules against her bikers. How many, how many people want to. Yeah.
Leila: Courtney has salvia reports that Cleveland has received 281 applications to be part of this 13 member panel.
And so now the city has to sort through those and determine who to nominate to the group. Mayor Justin bib gets to pick 10 and then city council gets to pick the other three and then all of them have to be approved by council. Bib is going to use this two step process to choose his ten first the applications that are going to be evaluated by the, by a 25 member, resident review committee.
That group will whittle down the 281 applicants into a shortlist of 15. And that, excuse me, that list will be sent to a four person selection advisory panel, which will further vet the candidates. And then bib will interview those on the shortlist before making his final selections. Both panels will be chaired by the city’s chief ethics officer.
Delantay [00:08:00] Spencer Thomas, to kind of, you know, maintain consistency and integrity of the process. Big hopes. Council will approve the nominees in July. But, you know, I was thinking about this, this giant resident review committee of 25 people. I mean, that’s, it’s an interesting group for a couple of reasons.
First of all, this is an unwieldy size, right? When in the history of committees have twenty-five people ever agreed upon anything? Second, secondly, Look at who’s on the committee. You’ve got a lot of folks. First of all, who fought to get this measure on the ballot? Latanya Goldsby for example, is in this group, she’s the president and co-founder of black lives matter Cleveland.
She’s the cousin of Tamir rice, but then you’ve got Jeff Fullmer, the president of the Cleveland police union, which has fought police reform at every turn. And, and is the very reason that voters resoundingly called for this level of community oversight. Isn’t this like poisoning the, well, why is he on this committee?
How are they ever going to get anywhere by ed? Especially by. [00:09:00] How are they gonna, how are they gonna achieve this? I just don’t understand how they’re going to get 281 names down to 15 in a matter of months with this kind of with this, with, with Jeff Palmer on the committee. I’m sorry.
Chris: I’ll just come on and say, yeah, it could be, it could be difficult.
I do hope it’s transparent. I hope that there’s talk about why they’re choosing who they’re choosing. I, this is a whole new. For the transparency on how Cleveland police operate. It’s been a very closed system for forever. Um, this is really interesting developments as this goes forward and how it exerts its authority and how.
Um, I just, we’ve never seen anything like this. So every step of it is new and interesting, and we should really be drilling into it. And when these people are finally chosen profile all of them, because they could have a profound effect on the relationship between police and the residents. Of course, you have a whole bunch of pro police people saying, [00:10:00] it’s this, this is why Cleveland is lacking hundreds of officers.
Although I think you’re seeing that there’s a lack of police officers across the.
Leila: I also wanted to note, I kind of laughed out loud when I got to the part of the story where it said city council will pick its nominees through its own process, which will likely involve council, president Blaine, Griffin, and his leadership team.
Like just choosing, because you’ve got big and 25 people and then another team of four people and they’re going to whittle it down and whittle it down. And then you’ve got like Blaine Griffin and his, you know, two people picking for everybody else.
Chris: Yeah, I’m not sure which one of those is better. I, I, the plain Griffin path might actually be the smarter path.
It’s the
Lisa: smarter
Leila: path. Like just
Chris: cut to that. Okay. You’re listening to today in Ohio, Ohio’s Republican legislative leaders did everything they could to avoid their constitutional duties and drawing, voting maps. Are they now using the very same [00:11:00] tactics to avoid having a marijuana initiative on the November ballot.
Lisa, the people that want it on the ballot have done everything they’re supposed to do. And the Republican leaders seem like they’re trying to thwart them. Yeah.
Lisa: Here’s another episode in foot dragging by Bob cup and Matt Huffman. I kind of want to match up their names. Cup men, you know, just to do a little shorthand for these, cause they’re joined at the hip obviously, but the coalition to regulate marijuana like alcohol, they did an initiated statute.
And so what that means is this proposal for recreational marijuana, legalization goes to the legislature. If they don’t do anything in for. Then they go back and collect another 132,000 odd signatures to get it put on the ballot for November. So the coalition filed a lawsuit against state officials, including cutman and here I go, men and others, Franklin rose included.
They say that they’re, you know, they should approve the recreational [00:12:00] marijuana law by May 28th, because there was like four months and they. Four months for the legislature to consider this started on January 28th. So that means that four-month period ends at the end of this month on May 28th. And they’re saying, you know, they filed this lawsuit because they don’t think the GOP is likely to vote.
So they want it to go to voters in the.
Chris: Yeah, I we’ve all been operating on the May 28th date because that’s the way the law works. They’re trying to change the rules. They’re doing exactly what they did with gerrymandering. They’re refusing to follow the law. I’m presuming the judge is going to slap him silly and move this thing along the people, there is a process for putting laws on the ballot.
They have followed it to the letter, right. And the guys that make the law. Are breaking it. So
Lisa: again, the state officials are saying that the voters or the legislature shouldn’t act until next year. So they’re trying to put it off until after the November election.
Chris: [00:13:00] Well, they don’t want the marijuana on the ballot because it’ll draw Democrats to vote young people to vote.
They don’t want that because they’re going to vote for Democrats and not Republicans by. There’s a process in place, just like there’s a process for drawing maps and they got to follow it. I presume if this goes to the us Supreme court, there’s a higher Supreme court will do what it’s done with the legislative process, the redistricting process, and say, follow the law, which is May 28th.
Be interesting to see we’ll be paying attention it’s today. Why was the arrival of a certain ship in Cleveland this week? A big deal, Laura, the lakefront is yours and I’m
Laura: pretty sure I saw this ship, um, on Tuesday or Wednesday when I was down by the beach in Rocky river. So it was very cool. It’s the first cruise ship since the pandemic.
So that was the summer of 2019. The last time we saw cruising on the great lakes, this was the ship that 200 passengers called the ocean navigator. I know why is it called the ocean navigator on the great lakes? [00:14:00] It used to be called the victory too. It’s in the middle of a 11 day tour from Toronto to Chicago.
And they had a full day devoted to Cleveland where people got to get off the ship and explore places like the rock hall or even down to Amish country. And we have a brand new customs facility that got used for the very first time here with the passengers that had to go through because they were in Toronto.
So going between Canada and the U S like going to have to declare.
Chris: I love that Susan Glasser found somebody who was excited to be going up to the upper peninsula of Michigan, because he said Jim Harrison fan author, Jim Harrison. And he always wants to see the places that he’s read about. Um, but Jim Harrison fan, and just thought, wow, that was a nice little Easter egg in the bottom of her story.
How often will we see. In Cleveland. Now we’re going to
Laura: see 36 this year. That’s up from 22 in 2019. So that’s a big jump. So they should be a pretty regular occurrence on the shore. Most of these are from the American [00:15:00] queen voyages ship line. That’s formerly the victory cruise line this year. First time on the great lakes is biking, which you’ve all seen the Viking river cruise commercials, right on PBS, or like seeing the ads in the magazines.
So they don’t include a stop in Cleveland this year. Um, but in 2023, they’re going to start. So this is a growing industry and the majority of people on them are retirees. I mean, it’s 11 days. They’re pretty pricey. We’re talking thousands of dollars on these small. But people that Susan talked to and I talked to Josh Gunter, who shot the photos.
He said, you know, people who have like from Texas who have never seen a great lake, like this is on their bucket list. They want it, they want to experience.
Chris: And it’s a cool way to see it. So it’s, uh, it’s exciting. The port has been very busy this week with that. And other ships you’re listening to today in Ohio had did a recent fire in Brooklyn illustrate the challenges that fire departments are having in being fully staffed Laila.
This is one of my favorite stories of the week. Olivia Mitchell took [00:16:00] a simple fire and turned it into a fully duty. Discussion about the current state of firefighting and, and some serious challenges that’s facing and how they’re trying to solve.
Leila: Yeah. You know, it strikes me, I remember writing about this problem 17 years ago when I covered the suburbs and it feels like it’s getting worse, right?
I mean, whenever suburban fire departments are faced with battling large blazes, their, their own staff and departmental resources are often not enough to handle it. So they must rely on, what’s known as mutual aid agreements with their neighboring community. You see that often when several cities departments show up to fight a large scale structure fire, one example was a February 16th fire at the Hampton Inn on, on, uh, T or near road in Brooklyn on a regular shift.
Six officers work in the Brooklyn fire department. And the city has a total of 21 firefighters to serve the city of about 12,000 residents. But that fire drew more than a hundred firefighters. From 10 departments. So it seems [00:17:00] departments reliance on the help of their neighboring communities. Fire departments is increasing as fire department staff is being depleted through attrition and not being replenished.
And the concern is what happens when a fire erupts and your neighboring departments are too busy to help. So for this story, Olivia Mitchell spoke to Rob Slattery, a former police officer, and a resident of Brooklyn who monitored city government. And he pointed out that in Brooklyn specifically, they really should be looking to hire more firefighters at the moment.
They’re paying their small staff a ton and overtime. Some officers earn thousands of dollars in OT last year. Not only would that money be better spent on hiring more officers, but also. The long hours really strain firefighters. And that’s not safe, especially for those who are veterans of the department, but, but recruitment is really difficult and in cities don’t know why or how to change.
And in the meantime, every city is just deeply dependent on one another for mutual aid. And [00:18:00] in many suburbs are especially dependent on Cleveland Cleveland’s fire department. With more than 700 firefighters appears to be right sized for the city’s 70 370,000 residents, but they lend assistance to all of their struggling neighbors in a pinch.
And. Honestly, if you ask me all of this strongly suggests, we should be considering a complete reorganization of public safety resources into regional approach, right. Pointing
Chris: to, and whatever it was, 2002, 2003, we did the region divided series. And one of the best pieces of it looked at this and suggested that a countywide fire department be the answer I lived in Orlando.
For nine years. And there was a countywide fire department that covered most of the county, not Orlando. And it was what most professional fire department I ever saw because it was huge, you know, they did all sorts of research and how best to fight fires and different kinds of fires and things like that because they.
They were organized and efficient. And when we did that story back in, whatever it [00:19:00] was, it’s 20 years ago, it’s hard to believe. Uh, we use the students study that that looked in one corner of the county and how much you would save on equipment. And. It’s fire stations while providing a better service. And this story really does demonstrate that’s what we should be talking about.
Leila: I mean, when it comes to regionalism, I can understand, you know, every, everyone becomes very territorial about their resources, all the, you know, they’re all fiefdoms and they’re all very, you know, selfish and, you know, and, but when it comes to this, this is happening naturally, already. They’re already sharing resources and it’s happening now all the time.
They’re saying on a daily basis, they’re sharing resources. Why not formalize it and do it in an equitable fashion it’s time. Right.
Chris: We provide a better service and it would cost less. There’s it’s a no brainer. We should do it. It would make the county safer for everybody. [00:20:00] And even if Cleveland wanted to maintain its own, because it’s this big gigantic government entity, you could still have a county fire department covering the rest of the county.
It would save us all money. And look, I hear from people all the time, they figured they think their taxes are too high. They’re they’re weary of the way the county keeps raising them and they want to see some responsibility. So I don’t know, are. All right. Are they that parochial about fire departments, where they want their own fire?
Well,
Leila: I think, I think they’re less parochial about fire departments than they are about other city services. You know, I don’t think they want to regionalize. I mean, what are some other services that they wouldn’t mind regionalizing? I mean, I think we see, we see communities sharing recreation centers.
Right?
Laura: Well, they definitely don’t want to regionalize their trash pickup. That seems like the most point. But I think what is so interesting about Olivia’s story is that’s not saying we should hire more. They’re saying nobody wants to be firefighters. And, and that’s something, I don’t think they had [00:21:00] contemplated for a very long time, but I remember those studies where they showed, you know, cause each city would have fire departments based on where in the city they needed to cover.
Right. But they weren’t thinking about outside their boundaries. So sometimes places in one city or closer to another city’s fire department, like building and where the trucks are stored, then it does. So it only makes sense to regionalize,
Leila: to be honest, nobody wants to do anything. Nobody can hire anybody in any industry right now, for some reason.
And I don’t understand
Lisa: you think that firefighters would be a good job, but you have to realize that, especially over the last several years, a lot of the calls that firefighters make our overdose calls and they are carrying Narcan with them. I mean, so that might be part of the burnout. They’re not really fighting a whole lot of fires.
You know, saving over two.
Laura: You’re right, because these are not just firefighters. Most and least in the suburbs are EMS right there.
Leila: Right. They need that crossover training.
Chris: Right? This is [00:22:00] all the evidence you need. That this is a terrific story. Terrific stories. Spark, good conversation. Check out Olivia’s story on cleveland.com.
You’re listening to today in Ohio. What is the allegation that has launched an investigation into the Medina county treasurer and the county card that ended up in the possession of his son, Lisa, this stinks.
Lisa: Yeah. The Medina county commissioners court has asked the attorney General’s bureau of criminal investigation to look into allegations against Medina county treasurer.
John Burke, apparently. I sold a county owned vehicle to an unnamed auto dealer, which then transferred that vehicle to Burke sun. So county owned cars are required to be auctioned off or sold and donated to another government entity. Just can’t just give them to a family member. Do a pass through with an auto dealer.
So members of the county democratic party are calling for Berks resignation. They say that the, the GOP [00:23:00] commissioners on the, on the commissioner’s court and the prosecutor declined action and referred it to the attorney, attorney general instead of a. A special prosecutor. The Dems are saying it’s white color theft and party.
Secretary pat Walker says there’s a pattern of illegal behavior in government waste in the county government there. So that’s probably worth looking into.
Chris: Well, this is audacity. You can’t just take a county car and take it to a car dealer to get it off your hands. And there’s very specific rules about this stuff.
I mean, this seems like a slam dunk that he’s committed a crime. I don’t get it. I don’t get what he was thinking. And the people that are coming after him have a really legitimate claim. I, it sounds like an audit is needed into everything else. This guy has done because this is so brave.
Lisa: Right. And it could be party politics.
I mean, the Dem party is calling out there saying, you know, there’s a lot of government waste. So I mean, I think this is something we need to dig into. Um, one of the [00:24:00] commissioners, Steve Hambly says they will appoint a special prosecutor for this case after the BCI investigation closes. So we’ll see what happens then.
All
Chris: right. You’re listening to today in Ohio. Why might Joe Blystone the female candidate for Ohio governor be in some serious trouble. Layla.
Leila: So Joe Blystone washed out of the Republican primary last week, but his campaign finance troubles live on. He remains under scrutiny for improperly recording, thousands of dollars worth of small donations back in March, secretary of state Franklin Rose’s office flagged more than a hundred thousand dollars in contracts.
To his campaign that appear to violate the state’s limit on cash donations or ban on corporate donations last month, Blystone campaign replied in report that it will return more than $5,000 of those K those contributions. Although the secretary of state’s office is still investigating other issues raised in their audit of Blackstone’s campaign, finance reports.[00:25:00]
Blystone his campaign treasurer, who is his wife, Jane Blystone apparently told the Ohio ethics or Ohio elections commission during a hearing last week that she and other campaign officials thought wrongly for months, that they didn’t have to collect the names and addresses from people who donated less than $25.
But there were other problems with how they reported their contributions to thousands of dollars. We’re realistic, not by donors, but just as a total collected for each of their campaign events. So for example, you’d see a total of like $4,000 during an event here on July, whatever, but it wouldn’t list the donors who gave the money or how much they gave.
And Jane Blystone, couldn’t explain to them. Commission w why she did that. And Jean Blystone also said her husband’s campaign collected about $350,000 from selling about 70,000 yard signs at five bucks, a pop, but the campaign only had partial records about the names and addresses of people who [00:26:00] bought the signs until around November, 2021.
When they, when campaign officials realized they had to collect the information from every donor. So, I mean, they’re not the only. The only ones who got dinged for camp campaign, finance issues. They’re kind of the stupidest.
Chris: All right. But, you know, we talked not long ago about the Cuyahoga Heights, mayor, Trevor Elkins, having to resign, and he got convicted of a crime for things he did with his campaign fund.
He, but it involved how we spent the money and how he mixed personal money and spent the money. There’s no question here about how they spent the money. It’s just how they, how they accounted.
Leila: Right, right. So I’m not sure how this will, how this goes, but, uh, but yeah, it just seems like a lot, this looks like it was the longest of the audits that, that came out.
If
Chris: they’re so cavalier with their accounting, it would have been interesting. If he’d been elected governor, what would happen with [00:27:00] the books? You can’t do this. This is not the way it works. Okay, interesting. Let’s see if he gets charged with a crime or if this is just administrative you’re listening to today in Ohio, how was the market for used cars about the cost Euclid big with one of its biggest employers.
We said, this is bad news for the city of you.
Lisa: Yeah, this is a shame. Cause Carvana is like one of the top 15 employers in the city of Euclid. They are going to be laying off 2,500 workers across their whole company due to declining profits. And it’s not because cars are selling cheaper because we know used cars are at a premium right now.
It’s because there’s no inventory. So they say they’re going to. Transitioning quote, unquote, away from the Euclid inspection center. They won’t say how many local workers will be affected. And if the center will permanently closed, they just say they’re moving operations away from the site in coming weeks, Euclid mayor Chris Kirsten, Gail says, you know, they were [00:28:00] not directly contacted by Carvana about this change, this change.
And they’re anxious to find out how it affects their city and also how it affects their budget, because there’ll be losing some revenue here.
Chris: This is another pandemic effect. It’s a, that the used car market has been very interesting during the pandemic cars are hard to get used. Car prices have gone through the roof.
Carvana isn’t having trouble is a business. They’re having trouble getting cars. Right. Right,
Lisa: right. And I’ll tell you, Ganley Subaru, every week they send me an email or a letter says, we want to buy your 2015 Crosstrek at above market value, blah, blah. So, yeah, the desperation is out there. I mean, used car inventory is extremely low and no end in.
Chris: Yeah, I get those. I finally unsubscribed because they were coming in too frequently. It’s like, leave me alone. I like my
Laura: car. No one is asking for my 2010 Honda Odyssey that has, I refuse to let the kids roll down the windows. Cause I’m pretty sure they won’t go back up, but it’s like, [00:29:00] we’ve been telling the kids for like two years now.
It’s not a good time to buy a car, but like, I don’t know when it’s going to be a good time to buy it. Well,
Lisa: and it’s sad people, kid parts, probably someone you would want your 2010 Honda because you know, there are people who want to find a car who’s less than that’s less than $5,000. And you really can’t find that in.
Chris: But Carvana must see this as a longer term effect cause to, to make the changes they’re making. It seems like they’re betting that there’s going to be a tight market for awhile. It’s a shame for Euclid it’s today in Ohio. That does it for Thursday. Thanks Lisa. Thanks Layla. Thanks Laura. Thanks to everybody who listens.
We’ll be back Friday to wrap up the week of news.
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