Today in Ohio, the daily news podcast of cleveland.com and The Plain Dealer.

CLEVELAND, Ohio -- A federal prosecutor asked the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio to freeze its four investigations into FirstEnergy and the House Bill 6 bribery scandal, arguing it may interfere with an ongoing federal investigation.

We’re talking about the separation of government powers, and who answers to whom, on Today in Ohio.

Editor Chris Quinn hosts our daily half-hour news podcast, this week 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:

We’ve wondered for more than year why the U.S. Prosecutor handling the giant HB 6 corruption investigation is barely moving on the case, and now he’s actively trying to block others from holding FirstEnergy to account for its bribery? What is going on with the guy?

How much money will two Lake and Trumbull counties get from some pharmacy companies for all the harm the companies did in those counties with their irresponsible dispensing of opioids?

How toxic is the place where Cuyahoga County Executive Armond Budish and the County council want to build a new jail?

It took a ruling by the Ohio Supreme Court to figure this out? How long can a train block you at a train crossing?

People and entities that received state appointments from Mike DeWine or lucrative state contracts have been throwing ash at a group behind attack ads against DeWine’s opponent, Nan Whaley. How much money are we talking about?

The November ballot could prove costly for residents in parts of Cuyahoga County, with some significant tax issues. Who is trying to reach into our pockets now?

It turns out the Justice Department served more than one subpoena on South Euclid involving its recently departed controversial municipal court judge. What does the second one seek?

Marijuana is not legal in Ohio. So how is a local company able to teach people how to grow it?

We have an Apple podcasts channel exclusively for this podcast. Subscribe here.

Do you get your podcasts on Spotify? Find us here.

If you use Stitcher, we are here.

RadioPublic is another popular podcast vehicle, and we are here.

On Google Podcasts, we are here.

On PodParadise, find us here.

And on PlayerFM, we are here.

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

Chris: [00:00:00] The biggest corruption scandal on the history of Ohio continues to have new chapters. One of which we’ll be talking about on today in Ohio, the news podcast discussion from cleveland.com and the plain dealer. I’m Chris Quen. I am here with Lisa Garvin, Courtney STAI, and Laura Johnston. Ready to go into a good healthy.

Thursday discussion. We’ve wondered for more than a year. Why the us prosecutor handling the giant HB six corruption investigation is barely moving in the case. And now he’s actively trying to block others from holding first energy to account for its bribery. Courtney, what is going on with this guy?

Courtney: Yeah, well, us attorney of the Southern district of Ohio, Kenneth Parker, he’s asked the public utilities commission to freeze for at least half a year. A handful of ongoing investigations into the HB six bribery scandal. Now, PCOS been looking into that, you know, the 60 million bribe [00:01:00] money to pass HB six.

And they’re also looking at millions in, in secret payments to companies of ex PCO chair, Sam Daso, and the us attorney wants those on pause. They’re arguing that it could interfere. With their ongoing federal investigation, they noted that, you know, PCOS investigations are well underway, written discoveries, starting to be exchanged.

And there’s the potential for depositions to start happening. And, and the, the Southern district is, is nervous for that to proceed. They stated in a letter to PCO that, that those pieces of its investigation process could directly interfere or impede with the, with the us. Ongoing investigation. So it sounds like PCO hasn’t said whether they’ll comply with this request or not.

Like I said, this was a, oh, go.

Chris: Here’s the problem. P U C doesn’t answer to the [00:02:00] justice department, P U C answers to us, and we deserve transparency on everything that went on with this. We’re we’re not that that’s the P C O is not there to be an arm of the federal prosecutor. Look, federal prosecutor is.

Working agonizingly slowly, the evidence against Sam Ranzo could not be more overwhelming. We have yet to see them do a single thing to bring him to account. He’s a completely free guy. So there’s a lot of complaints we could have about the justice department. It’s lack of transparency. It’s a lack of action.

It’s a lack of accountability to the taxpayer. P C was trying to give us that accountability and transparency. There are people trying to get us answers for how our government could be more corrupted than ever in history. And now the justice department’s trying to stop it. That guy should stick his nose back in his own case and get it done.

Courtney: Yeah. So the, the timing here is interesting. So we, we are looking [00:03:00] for clarity on what exactly happened with Renzo, who was the, the former chair of PCO. He, he, he did not disclose 13 million that came to his companies from first energy over the years. And, and that’s a big piece of what PCO wants to look into.

You know, they want to get answers there. We haven’t seen much concrete stuff, uh, around Renzo. From the federal government. So this PCO investigation would shed some light there. And, but, but I will say I’m, I’m not sure if, if PCOS gonna gonna press ahead here, especially given this federal request to put these investigations on ice here for a little bit, when they launched this investigation into Renzo’s payments, I think it was back in December.

They said they, they didn’t intend to interfere with the federal investigation and with the fed and with the civil lawsuit that’s pending. So PCOS already kind of signaled that they don’t wanna get wrapped up in this or interfere. And if that’s the request from the [00:04:00] feds, then you’d gotta think they probably will.

Chris: Hold, hold on, hold on, hold on, though. We, we have separate branches of government and as we’ve seen through gerrymandering, the executive and the legislative don’t really pay attention to the judicial. So why should they start here? This is one where that P U C is not governed by the justice department.

Isn’t governed by the courts. They should continue to work for the people who pay their salaries and who, who have trusted them. To do the right thing, which let’s face it for much of this case, they weren’t paying attention. I hope they reject this and that the justice department sticks its nose back where it’s supposed to, which is bringing justice for the criminality that occurred.

We have yet to see anybody really brought to account in a trial. It is today in Ohio. How much money will two will go to lake and Trumbull counties from pharmacy companies for all the harm those companies did in those counties with [00:05:00] their irresponsible dispensing of opioids. Lisa, I don’t know that any of us were expecting.

Lisa: number well, and this is isn’t even what they asked for, but it’s plenty. Uh, Cleveland federal judge Dan pollster issued a 76 page decision yesterday in this opioid suit against CVS, Walgreens and Walmart. He ordered a 650 million payment to lake and Trumbull counties for the pharmacy’s role.

Opioid epidemic in those counties. He did point out in his decision. He said that no federal judge in history has had to determine the scope necessary to address a small piece of an escalating national tragedy. So, yes, this is a bellwether case. I mean, there are other, you know, it’s closely watched by plaintiffs and defendants in other counties in Ohio and nationwide, quite frankly.

So Trumbull will get, uh, 300. 44 million over the next 15 years, lake county will get 306 million. Uh, the pharmacies though must [00:06:00] immediately pay 86.7 million into a fund that will be monitored by a court appointed administrator. So these funds can get to these counties right away so they can help address their opioid situ.

Uh, as you can imagine, the, uh, pharmacies aren’t happy, CVS spokesman, Michael DeAngelo says they strongly disagree with pollster’s ruling. They say it’s a misapplication of the public nuisance law, and they look forward to an, a review of this case by the appeals court. Uh, Walmart and Walgreens also plan to appeal.

And they say that the trial was engineered to favor the plaintiffs and it was not really their fault. It was really more bad doctors, state, and federal regulation fails and drug dealers. They contributed way more to the opioid crisis than the pharmacies did.

Chris: Well, and of course they’re also paying big bucks.

Ultimately you’ve gotta think this will be a Supreme, you know, a us Supreme court case that the us Supreme court will have to decide whether all of the [00:07:00] arguments the pharmacies are making or legitimate, but, but here’s the, the troubling part of this to me is. In the end, this feels like a tax on us because this is pretty much all the major pharmacy companies.

They’re not gonna pay this money. They’re gonna turn around and all raise their prices and collect all this money so they can pay it. So in, in the end, doesn’t this all just come out of our pockets. I

Lisa: don’t know that you can really meddle with drug prices enough to do that. I don’t know, but you know, yes.

I mean, they’ll probably find a way to pass it on to consumer.

Chris: Yeah, I just, I think they’ll, they’ll raise their prices. Insurance companies will pay it. They’ll turn around and bill us in, in the end. I think the real way to hold people accountable for this kind of misdeed is criminally. Yeah. If people were wrongfully distributing, These kind of drugs, then hold ‘em account criminally and make them pay a personal price.

Cuz ultimately all those many millions, I [00:08:00] feel like are gonna be pulled out of our pockets. We’ll see. Think about too. This is two counties in a nation of what thousands of them. If every county that had a grievance started to pull money from the. Pharmacies they’ll go bankrupt. I mean, there’s no way they could multiply this by the number of places that were savaged by the opioid epidemic.

Lots to come on it, but it was a big number. It’s today in Ohio. How toxic is the place where Cuyahoga county, executive Armen Buddhi and the county council want to build a new jail? Laura, this is cleveland.com and the plain dealer getting action, because until we reported that that place was a toxic stew, they weren’t really looking that closely.

I mean, they were gonna do a toxic report, but they weren’t gonna get to it until after they bought the place. They, our story stopped them fully so that they could get this report and who it is sobering.

Laura: Yeah, it is. I mean, basically there are toxins in the soil, the groundwater and the air, I mean there.

So if, if you can [00:09:00] make it toxic, this place is toxic. So this is a 338 page report we haven’t dug in. I’m sure there’ll be follows to go. But basically it says what the problems are and it has some remediation ideas. It doesn’t have any dollar prices for what those remediations would. But it basically wants you to, to, to have all these engineering controls, to prevent exposure, exposure to the soil toxins while you’re building it.

And then. If people are ever in it, they would have to have these air handling systems that would keep the air purified and safe. So they say they can use it. They, the county officials are saying there’s nothing in here. They didn’t expect, but it does lay out in 338 pages. Exactly how. Deep. This problem is,

Chris: well, what this reminded me of was the Walmart out in whatever it was, Garfield Heights, they built it on a landfill and they put in all the ventilation and all that sort of stuff that closed the place down because it was filling with gas that could [00:10:00] explode.

I mean, it was just one of those where you could have predicted it. Everybody did predict it and it happened. The, the what’s amazing to me about this. We’ve talked about the anomalies on this. That the county is in a rush to get this done before the end of the year when the, the next executive comes in and both of the people running for the executive don’t wanna build it here.

They’re on the record. They don’t wanna do it. So, so that’s an anomaly. Why are they in an all fired rush to do it? The second thing is you got a site where you’d have to have drainage and ventilation mm-hmm and all sorts of caps and constant monitoring to stop any vapor from the soil, from getting into the nostrils of anybody that’s detained and working there.

Why. Why not go to a place where there’s no danger of that, where you don’t have to do any of that. Think about the lawsuits that’ll come as a result of this. Anybody that gets cancer after having stayed in the jail will Sue. Plus you might have a civil rights case. It’s largely a black population. I, this makes no sense that they’re [00:11:00] saying.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It’s a toxic stew, but, but we can use it anyway. I don’t get.

Laura: Yeah. Yeah. I agree with you. Like, I understand that there is science that so says we can get the levels to acceptable, you know, whatever, but why would you take that chance when you’re right. Anything that goes wrong and we know what the county building something eventually is going to go wrong.

I mean, when you buy a car, you know, what’s gonna break down something is going to break down and then you’re gonna be putting people at risk. So the report is, look, you know, it looks at all of these things. It says, conditions have. Somewhat because of natural biodegradation, since chemical levels were last measured in 1999, they’re still higher than safe.

We’re talking about petroleum hydrocarbons, um, which are chemicals that occur naturally in coal, crude oil and gasoline benne in the groundwater. They’re like, well, we’re not gonna use the groundwater to drink well, okay. but, but that doesn’t mean it’s not there. And then these vapors that they say could be, they exceed the [00:12:00] lower explosive limit.

They say they can be mid mitigated. We’re talking about methane here. So they’ve already put a whole bunch of asphalt onto the site. And I think it’s like 22 acres of it and they it’s, uh, they wanna maintain two feet of clean compacted soil. It’s just kind of crazy to me when we’re talking about. The environment so often, like how you wanna like, have all these permeable pavements and ways that you can, like, you know, have groundwater soak in.

They wanna like, make sure that it doesn’t go anywhere. They’re just gonna put, hold, but on asphalt all over the place, but it doesn’t seem like a forward thinking idea.

Chris: Why just it’s, it’s why go down this road when you really don’t have to. And, and those are the questions that you start to think what else is going on here?

This just raises a lot of red flags. Be interesting to see what the conversation continues. And like you said, will be continuing to dig into the report it’s today in Ohio. [00:13:00] Took ruling by the Ohio Supreme court to figure this out. How long can a train block you at a train crossing Courtney? The Ohio Supreme court came out with a ruling about it.

Courtney: So this involves an Ohio law that goes back to 2000 that says trains can’t block, railroad crossings for more than five minutes. This law’s in place because. Of concerns about emergency vehicles. You have an ambulance, you gotta get it to someone on the other side of the tracks you can’t get through.

This is Ohio’s remedy to that issue. Right. But. We have this case from 2018 in Marysville, Ohio, where CXX CSX transportation was cited several times for, for blocking crossings. This was near a Honda plant. The train was making deliveries, CSX fought these citations and the muni court down there said.

Federal law preempted, these citations, they dismissed the charges. There was the appeals process and ultimately the Supreme court took it up. But a majority [00:14:00] yesterday, uh, written by, by justice, Sharon Kennedy found that the state law essentially conflicts with the federal law and the federal law takes precedence.

Therefore the state law is unenforceable. So this kind of involves, you know, one federal act that, that governs. Federal, you know, railroad practices, services, routes, everything to do with railroad cars. And then there’s another federal law that grants exceptions to that law related to railroad safety.

What we found out from justice Kennedy in, in striking down this state law, is that. Keeping those crossings open had nothing to do with railroad safety and therefore it had to do with the broader governing of railroad traffic. And therefore the federal law took precedent over the state law and the state law.

Chris: Yeah, the, the weird thing is if the federal law that allowed the exception had [00:15:00] had one adjective in front of safety, like public safety or the general safety, then they would’ve allowed it to stand I’ll bet. But because. It was narrowly worded. They interpreted it to mean railroad safety, the public be damned.

So the justices were sympathetic to the public. Like they want ambulances to get to sick people and not be blocked by trains that are just standing there. But the wording was such that they, they had to, they say they had to interpret that way. Jennifer Brunner dissented saying she disagreed the what?

The other thing we should point out is this law wasn’t to say you can’t block an intersection for more than five minutes, period. If a train was moving. You could block it longer. It’s just when they would get stuck and stop, they couldn’t do it for more than five minutes. I, I guess the only way to fix this would be you to go to the shared Browns and the Rob Portmans of the world and say, can you change the federal law so that this can apply to the public

[00:16:00] Yeah, I, it seems like that’s the remedy, as, as you pointed out, though, there was a dissent from Jennifer Brunner and, and she kinda zeroed in on what you said. All seven justices on the court agreed that that no federal law regulates blocked railroad crossings, and even Kennedy herself said that keeping crossing opens keeping crossings open was important for public safety, but that narrow read of the word.

And, and we have this

Chris: outcome. It’s always fun to read a technical Supreme court ruling over something. So basic is how long do I have to wait a train crossing? Good stuff. It’s today in Ohio. People and entities that received state appointments from governor Mike DeWine or lucrative state contracts have been throwing money at a group behind attack ads against Dew Divine’s opponent, Nalley.

Lisa, how much money are we talking about?

Lisa: Well, this money comes from the RGA right [00:17:00] direction pack, which is the fundraising arm of the Republican governor’s association. They spent 500 and. Thousand dollars on a 32nd TV ad that attacks democratic candidate for governor Nan Whaley. And her record is Dayton mayor.

Those began airing Tuesday this week, according to a cleveland.com and plain dealer analysis. 1.4 million given to the RGA in the first half of this year were from donors who got state contracts or appointments from governor DeWine. For example, Anthem B CBS. Uh, the state employee insurer gave them a half a million dollars care source.

Management of Dayton gave them $406,000. They’re the largest Medicaid managed care plan in Ohio. Uh, GPD group gave a hundred thousand dollars. They’re an Akron engineering company that got contracts for the Ohio turnpike and other state entities. Sherwin Williams here in Cleveland gave a hundred thousand dollars.

They got 70 [00:18:00] million in interest free loans from the state for their new headquarters being built downtown. So yeah, there’s a lot of pay for play going on. Um, governor Dewey’s campaign spokeswoman, Trisha McLoughlin says, well, the governor didn’t know about the ad until it went public as required by campaigns, finance laws.

She says that the real news is that Democrats are putting up a nominee with such an astonishingly failed record.

Chris: Well, it’s also with not a whole lot of money, so I don’t know how man, well, he can counter this in, in much of a big way. It’s not surprising that the people that have benefited from the term of Mike DeWine would.

Do everything possible to continue his time in office, but the amounts of money that they’re pouring into it are significant because as we know, from the first energy case, you expect the return on those investments. First energy’s case, it was 60 million and they got a much bigger return, but these are still large

And then there were two [00:19:00] people, uh, Brent Bishop got a hun gave a hundred thousand dollars. He. Named to the university of Toledo board of trustees. One month later after that donation, as was Greg Del, he gave a hundred thousand dollars. He got appointed to the Ohio higher educational facility commission, and you know, he got his job one month later, too.

So this looks like pay to play.

Chris: Mm. Okay. It’s today in Ohio, the November ballot could prove costly for residents in parts of Cuyahoga county with some significant tax issues. Laura, there’s a lot of tax weariness in the notes that I receive from our readers. Who’s trying to reach into our pockets now.

Laura: Well, if you live in Cuyahoga county, The Metro parks. So the park district is proposing a 2.7 mill replacement tax for 10 years. This would cost the owner of a $200,000 home, about $190 per year. And people love the Metro parks. Obviously there’s nothing [00:20:00] specific targeted in this. It’s going to conserve natural resources and repair and improve.

Current facilities this, the last time we passed a similar tax was in 2013. Uh, there is a renewal on the ballot for the port. So that would be for the whole county as well. It’s pretty small. And then, uh, there’s six school levies, uh, that are on the ballot. So six tax increases for individual communities.

Most of those are school levies, and a lot of those have failed in the past. And they’re back on.

Chris: I and in inflationary periods, people are less likely to pass taxes, although let’s face it. I don’t has the Metro parks ever failed. Everybody loves the Metro parks and it’s a fairly small percentage of the tax bills.

So pretty much mm-hmm, , that’s a wash, right? People will prove that in a heartbeat.

Laura: I think so. I mean, I don’t know, who’s gonna start a campaign against the Metro parks um, or the, the port, I mean, that’s, that’s a renewal, so that probably won’t be very controversial. Parma [00:21:00] has had a hard time passing school, district taxes in the past.

They wanna consolidate their high schools. So they’re asking for one, um, north Olmstead has had a tough time there on the ballot. Again, my town Rocky river in May, 2021, it failed in part because of a teacher scandal. I think also there was this. Robo call from tea party people telling, tell, you know, it was like this pre C RT scare of tactic.

So it’ll be interesting. I have not heard in all of the back to school emails and open houses, anything about this levy yet. So that’s something people will be voting on also bra and all they want to, uh, to raise money for a new, uh, village hall.

Chris: Yeah, I know that that’s one of those that you just look at and shake your head.

We’re we live in this balkanized county where all these tiny little towns exist each with its town hall and its police department. And, and now you’re gonna reach into people’s pockets in tiny bra, all to tear down the village [00:22:00] hall. So you can build a new one. I mean, let’s face it bran. Hall’s a pretty wealthy community.

They can afford it, but it really does speak to the inefficiency of our tax structure in COGA county. Right. I mean, If you didn’t have tiny places like bra all, you wouldn’t need to take money like this and spend it on a pretty much no account city hall.

Laura: I mean, maybe the people in bran hall, they, they probably want their new city hall.

I’ve never been to bran all ever, um, Because I’ve never been to the Shorey club and I don’t know what else is in bra. in really expensive houses, but you’re right. I mean, it does make you wonder. And we, we talk about this all the time about regionalization and how it makes no sense to have 57 municipalities and two townships in one county.

And how, you know, just all of the overlap, overlapping services there are. And while we talk about, uh, regionalism and people are starting to share some services and dispatch and things like that, It never really goes anywhere because [00:23:00] people want their representatives. And I, I mean, I don’t know about that.

And the, and the elected officials wanna keep their jobs.

Chris: That’s I think that’s more, it is that this, the elected officials use scare tactics to say, oh, you’ll have worse police coverage. We’re not talking about this today will be tomorrow, but Mayfield village could be in trouble because they’ve long lived on.

The revenue they get from progressive and progressive is realizing it needs less office space, you know, and, and Mayfield village is not Mayfield Heights, even though they have the same name. It’s, it’s all these divisions and all of ‘em spend money on stuff that if we merged would save us a bundle. So there you go, bra, and all, I wonder, I feel certain they’ll probably approve it.

Cause like I said, very,

Laura: very, it’ll be a lovely building.

Chris: I’m sure. Yeah. I’m sure it’s today in. it turns out the justice department served more than one subpoena on south Euclid involving its recently departed and controversial municipal [00:24:00] court. Judge. Lisa, what does the second one seek?

Lisa: Yeah, so a 48 year old Gale Williams buyers was hit with an F FBI subpoena or more correctly.

It was served to the south Euclid municipal court where she used to work. They’re seeking emails from 2016 to present. They’re seeking her email contacts and her court calendar. This is in addition to, to two subpoenas that went to south Euclid city hall for her personnel records and the recordings from the March and June city council meetings.

When they discussed court finances, all these subpoenas are dated on the 10th of August. The records must be submitted by September 13th. Uh, FBI spokeswoman, Susan LACA says that. Department of justice policy prohibits the release of more information. So we don’t really know exactly what they’re seeking, but I think we have a pretty good idea.

Uh, Williams buyer’s attorney, Jeff Saffold says they are happy to cooperate and Williams buyers stepped out of the frying pan, but, uh, she stepped [00:25:00] down, uh, at the end of last month to join the a E TV show court night live after 10 years as the court’s first black judge. And of course, Probably swirl, swirls around a few things.

Her travel expenses seemed pretty ex extensive that she charged to the city. She also had a spat with, uh, south Euclid, uh, police chief, Joe maze, over court access during the pandemic. And she sued the council in 2019 over her budget increase request that was denied.

Chris: I the, the second subpoena is, is a little more eyeopening to me.

I, I thought with the original subpoena that we reported on that this was really trying to figure out the books that the city, the elected city officials have been very upset for a long time about the budgeting over there. They, they had huge fights about the budget. They felt like they couldn’t get a true accounting.

And that they probably called in the FBI and said, look, we think there might be anomalies here that you should look at. And the [00:26:00] FBI trying to help out a small community. Doesn’t have a lot of resources did asking for her emails though. You start to, to look for motivations and conspiracies and things. I mean, to ask for as many emails as they’re asking for.

there must be something else they know that is not obvious to us about what they’re looking for.

Lisa: Yeah. It’s pretty intriguing. I mean, six years of emails and her email contacts, they’re really digging deep here. So it’ll be interesting to see what comes out of this.

Chris: Yeah. And we, we can get copies of all that once they turn it over.

But man, I would not wanna be the reporter that has to read through six years of those emails. Although I don’t know, maybe it would be entertaining. We’ll see. It’s today in Ohio. Marijuana is not legal in Ohio, other than medical marijuana. So how is it that a local company is able to teach people how to grow it?

Laura, this was an odd story.

Laura: It is, and this is, um, it’s a company that’s been around, I think since 26, [00:27:00] 20 17 in independence called the Cleveland school of cannabis. And they’ve just started this online course called my first plant, which makes me think of children’s book actually. Um, it’s gonna teach students to cultivate hemp, which can be legally grown at ho home in Ohio with a proper license, but the instructors will be based in California and teach the class remotely because of Ohio.

You can grow marijuana in 18 states, including I believe in Michigan and in Washington, DC and growing at home would be a huge savings to people who are living with a serious illness and might need 500 to $600 of medical cannabis in a month, depending on the state and taxes. So. I mean, no, one’s telling you, you have to grow it in your closet, in your dorm room.

Chris: So you you’re allowed to grow it. If you have a medical marijuana certificate. I don’t

Laura: believe so. No, not in Ohio. You can grow hemp if you have a, a license, but there, there are Cleveland company that is marketing this to people who live in states where you can grow it.

Chris: [00:28:00] So it’s not marketed to Ohio ones, even though it’s not right.

Not right now. Top taught by Ohio can. I mean, if, if somebody in Ohio wanted to learn more for academic purposes, could they take the course or is the company not teaching it to people locally? I think

Laura: any, I mean, I don’t think there’s a law against learning about how to do it, but right now they’re having, they’re not even teaching the class in Ohio.

They’re using these California instructors because Ohio law is stricter, but they’ve already had. Hundred 50 students graduate in since 2017, uh, 60% are working in the medical marijuana field. And the first years they had to grow marijuana by growing like tomatoes because they couldn’t legally grow marijuana, but I believe they can grow marijuana as, um, a licensed school.

So they have, uh, 600 seeds and they’re building a hemp lab.

Chris: Closes out the Thursday discussion we got one more day. I think it’ll probably be a newsy Thursday. It often is. So we’ll come back and have some fun things to talk about. Thanks Lisa. [00:29:00] Thanks Courtney. Thanks Laura. Thank you for listening to today.

Note to readers: if you purchase something through one of our affiliate links we may earn a commission.

Registration on or use of this site constitutes acceptance of our User Agreement, Privacy Policy and Cookie Statement, and Your California Privacy Rights (User Agreement updated 1/1/21. Privacy Policy and Cookie Statement updated 7/1/2022).

© 2022 Advance Local Media LLC. All rights reserved (About Us). The material on this site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used, except with the prior written permission of Advance Local.

Community Rules apply to all content you upload or otherwise submit to this site.