Crain's Cleveland Business, October 9, 2023

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Jordan brings mission into focus at United Way

Agency’s new president, CEO is rst woman in role

By Kim Palmer

Under Sharon Sobol Jordan, the United Way of Greater Cleveland’s newest and rst female president and CEO, the organization is evolving its long-standing mission from providing “crisis aid” funding for those in need to addressing the causes and systems barring economic mobility.

Jordan aims to transition one of the largest and, at 122 years old, one of the oldest philanthropic organizations in the country from a traditional passthrough funding model to more of a think-tank approach, a convener of best practices to examine and, eventually, help break the cycle of poverty in the region.

Expert: Akron’s Innerbelt offers many possibilities

Future of the site should honor past, architect says

By Dan Shingler

Akron is about to learn more about what could be its most important new development in decades — one that could produce recreation space, honor local history, and result in new housing and commercial development. It might even produce a new neighborhood that comes with its own storied history.

SPORTS BUSINESS

The Cleveland Guardians have begun offseason renovations at Progressive Field. The new-look upper deck will feature a beer garden down the left eld line.

PAGE 5

It’s all possible at the site of the now-closed Innerbelt highway that cuts through downtown and has been slated for redevelopment since it was shut down in 2018, says the city’s consultant on the site. Nationally renowned architect and urban planner Liz Ogbu, the founder of California’s Studio O, said she has completed her

Disinformation poses a serious threat to democracy. Experts say a full range of efforts is required from public of cials, political party leaders and citizens before votes are cast. PAGE 9

Sharon Sobol Jordan is the United Way of Greater Cleveland’s newest and rst female president and CEO.

KeyBank’s market dominance continues to grow

Compared with 2022, there aren’t many big changes in the top 10

By Jeremy Nobile

KeyBank’s dominance of the Northeast Ohio banking marketplace became even stronger in 2023, though its growth in deposits comes with an asterisk.

Cleveland-headquartered Key remains far and away the top bank in Northeast Ohio—de ned by Crain’s as 15 counties in and around Greater Cleveland—according to recently updated deposit market data from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. at annual data is always current for each year as of June 30.

e FDIC shows that Key’s deposits in the region increased by 16.4% to approximately $64.7 billion in 2023. at gives the company a 37.04% share of the market compared with 32.34% in 2022.

at growth comes as total deposits in the Northeast Ohio region increased just 1.7% over the prior year to $174.6 billion.

Meanwhile, across the broader U.S. banking system, deposits between June 2023 and June 2022 decreased by 1.7%, according to the FDIC.

Compared with 2022, there aren’t many big changes in the 10 largest banks in Northeast Ohio.

at group features the same names in the same places until the tail end of the list, with most rms seeing a marginal decrease in deposits and market share.

e second-largest bank in the region continues to be Huntington Bank. e Columbus-based company saw deposits decrease by 1.5% to $27.8 billion in 2023, giving it a market share in Northeast Ohio of less than half of Key’s, at 15.94%. Huntington still has a decent lead on Pittsburgh-based PNC Bank, the third-largest bank in the regional market. Market share for PNC—which came into this region amid the throes of the nancial crisis through a controversial acquisition of National City Bank in 2008—has been slowly decreasing over the years.

In 2023, PNC saw its share winnow a bit more with deposits decreasing 11.8% to $15.7 billion. at gives it a share in Northeast Ohio of approximately 9% today. In 2018, PNC was still the third-largest bank in the region behind Huntington and Key, but it then had a market share of approximately 13%.

A closer look at KeyBank’s impressive growth

So what’s the deal with Key’s deposit growth?

at is largely attributed to how the bank routes corporate deposits through its headquarters— something many regional banks do. Many of those accounts are not for local companies but those based elsewhere.

The Top 10

erefore, the gures for Key’s pool of in-market deposits could be a bit misleading to the extent that they’re juiced with funds that are otherwise not actually connected to the regional market.

Although it’s not clear just how misleading those numbers might be—Key declined to discuss details—the bank would surely still be the largest in the market even without those corporate deposits in the mix.

“Some markets saw year-to-year changes in deposit totals due to internal changes in how KeyBank calculates market deposits as well as deposits at our headquarters,”

said Key spokesman Matthew Pitts. “Please understand we cannot disclose speci c details of those changes, but the number represented is accurate.”

Other banks in the Northeast Ohio top 10 that saw in-market deposits decrease since 2022 are JPMorgan Chase Bank (9.7% decrease); Citizens Bank (12.2% decrease); Fifth ird Bank (5.5% decrease); ird Federal Savings and Loan Association (1.8% decrease); U.S. Bank (3.5% decrease); and e Farmers National Bank of Can eld (5.4% decrease).

Considering this follows a period of abnormally high deposit

bank-specialized investment management rm. It also speaks to the value of customer relationships and strong deposit franchises.

Newcomer to the top

10

Among the top 10 nancial institutions in the Northeast Ohio market, the only other bank besides Key to show deposit growth in 2023 was Premier Bank, a Youngstownbased community bank with approximately $8.6 billion in assets as of the second quarter.

Premier saw its Northeast Ohio deposits grow by 22% to approximately $2.6 billion in 2023. at growth moved the company from 12th-largest bank in the region last year to the No. 10 spot.

In doing so, Premier leapfrogged Pennsylvania’s Dollar Bank and New York’s Flagstar Bank. Michigan-founded Flagstar was acquired last December by New York Community Bank, which continues to operate in this area under the Ohio Savings Bank name.

Deposits in the region for NYCB/Flagstar decreased 8.7% to approximately $2.6 billion in 2023, while Dollar’s deposits decreased 4.7% to approximately $2.3 billion, according to the FDIC.

Like most banks, Premier president and CEO Gary Small said his company is working harder on growing deposits in an increasingly competitive environment for those funds.

In terms of growth in the past year, Small notes that Premier has been enriched with a pool of brokered deposits, which contributed to its overall deposit growth. But even with those removed, he estimates that the bank’s deposits in the local region grew about 12% to 15%.

at growth, he said, is attributed in part to strong relationships with local governments that park their funds with the bank.

“ e winds we are having are on the commercial side and the municipal side, so public funds and what not,” Small said. “Of our 20 biggest depositors, 19 of those are municipalities, which is something that goes with being a good community bank.”

growth in 2020 and 2021 due to an injection of money into the economy from government stimulus programs during the COVID-19 pandemic, deposit shrinkage is to be expected. ose funds, which jolted deposit balances in the last few years have, may not be completely exhausted, but they are largely depleted.

e fact that deposits didn’t decrease more across the industry— with total U.S. deposits down 1.7%—is a re ection of banks doing a relatively good job managing the rapid increase in interest rates, according to insights from Elizabeth Park Capital Management, a

Premier grew total loans by 20% in 2022, but overall deposits only increased by 8%, a mismatch that is not sustainable for long.

“We do have to pay more attention this year to the right side of the balance sheet this year,” Small said. “At the end of the day, you can borrow money at reasonable costs to sustain the balance sheet, but you can’t sustainably grow the balance sheet faster than your deposit base.”

“We are busy out there chasing money market deposits, CDs and so forth, along with every other bank in the market,” he added. “We are very competitive on the consumer side, and we expect that to be a grower over time. It just hasn’t been this year.”

Here are the largest banks in Northeast Ohio, ranked by deposit market share, as of June 30, 2023.

KeyBank’s dominance of the Northeast Ohio banking marketplace became even stronger in 2023. The second-largest bank in the region continues to be Huntington Bank, while PNC is the third-largest bank in the regional market.

New approach to lung transplant prioritization could curb deaths

By Paige Bennett

A Cleveland Clinic research team has developed a model for prioritizing patients on the waitlist for a lung transplant they hope will lead to a decrease in deaths among patients waiting for a lung transplant.

e new model factors in the amount of time a patient spends on the waitlist and how that time a ects the severity of their condition and the urgency of their need for a transplant.

It’s outlined in a study, recently published in “ e American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine,” that was a collaboration between the Clinic’s Lerner Research Institute and Respiratory Institute and done with support from the National Institutes of Health.

“We identi ed that there were some opportunities using modeling and epidemiology approaches to better understand how we can help patient populations with end-stage or serious lung disease,” said Dr. Jarrod Dalton, director of Lerner Research Institute’s Center for Populations and Health Research, who is rst author of the paper.

e current system for prioritizing lung transplant candidates uses factors such as the stability of their condition, chance of survival after receiving a new organ, travel and proximity e ciency and immune system and blood type match.

ose factors are then used to calculate a Composite Allocation Score for each patient, with a maximum score of 100. e higher the number, the more severe the case is and the more that patient is in need of a transplant.

“We recognize that donor organs are a very, very scarce and precious resource and that when you look across all the organs, there are more patients who need a transplant than there are donor

organs available,” Dalton said.

More than 3,000 patients were added to the lung transplant waitlist in 2022, according to the United Network for Organ Sharing.

e average patient spends about two years on the waitlist for a single lung transplant and three years for two lungs, according to Stanford Medicine.

Lung transplants are usually considered for individuals with severe lung diseases, including emphysema, cystic brosis and pulmonary hypertension.

crease in urgency as re ected in the change in their risk of death while waiting for a transplant. And for other patients, they’re sick, they need a transplant, but they’re relatively stable.”

Using this information, the team created a new method for scoring patient needs that accounts for the type of lung disease a candidate has and the time spent on the waitlist.

When they recalculated patients’ scores using the new equation, they found that many patients who saw an increased risk of death while on the waitlist received a higher score than they did with the current model.

e new equation did not change the scores of patients who were marked low priority and remained stable over time.

Dalton said the clinical focus in lung transplants is ensuring that donated organs are put to maximum use. e current scoring system is based on tests given biannually at transplant centers.

Dalton said the model considers two possible outcomes: a patient’s predicted risk of death if they don’t receive a transplant today and their predicted risk of death is they do receive a transplant today.

“What this research did was it tried to capture the e ects of that time that you’re spending while on the waiting list,” he said.

e research team analyzed data from 12,000 U.S. adults listed for lung transplants between 2015 and 2020. ey discovered that some patients saw their risk of death increase the more time they spent on the waitlist.

“What we found is that some patients are really becoming sicker a lot more rapidly than others,” Dalton said. “For some patients, you have this really sharp in-

“ is research advances us towards development of a more comprehensive prediction model for risk of mortality among lung transplant candidates that could help guide decisions about patients who are in greater need for lung transplant and increase their odds for survival,” said Dr. James P. Kiley, director of the Division of Lung Diseases at the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, in a statement.

Dalton said the ndings are a rst step in helping researchers understand how to incorporate the e ects of time spent on a waitlist.

With further research, the team plans to re ne its discoveries using computational and simulation models.

“We’ve begun working on these simulation models,” he said. “Certainly, these are next steps for us to try to study in a deeper, in a more granular fashion, what the potential improvements in transplant outcomes might be.”

“What we found is that some patients are really becoming sicker a lot more rapidly than others.”

Dr. Jarrod Dalton, director of Lerner Research Institute’s Center for Populations and Health Research

The Cleveland Clinic’s Lerner Research Institute CLEVELAND CLINIC

What to expect from Progressive Field’s offseason renovations

By Joe Scalzo

Tuesday, Oct. 3, was such an achingly beautiful day in downtown Cleveland that you half-expected Bob Feller’s bronze statue to step down from his pedestal and start pitching batting practice to Jim ome, Larry Doby, Frank Robinson and Lou Boudreau.

But on the day the MLB postseason began, the main activity at the corner of Carnegie and Ontario was on the “Hickory Highway,” a series of wood boards lining Progressive Field’s third base line that allows construction vehicles to move around the eld without damaging the dirt.

e Guardians actually started work immediately after theirnal home game on Sept. 27 and are on track to complete two renovation projects by Opening Day 2024: the “Upper Deck Experience” and a new building on East Ninth Street.

e projects are part of the rst phase of $202.5 million in renovations planned for Progressive Field over the next two years, part of the $435 million renovation package passed by the city and the county at the end of 2021. e other $232.5 million will go to capital improvements (concrete work, seating, new boilers, etc.).

e Guardians have already torn out the stadium’s grass and have started removing out eld seats, as well as those upper deck shipping containers that were about as popular as the free agent signings of Josh Bell and Mike Zunino.

perience on the 400 level that will be open to all fans. e ticketed seating sections will have their own private club space on the 300 level.

◗ e Dugout Club, which will keep the current eld-level seats while adding a new exclusive lounge behind home plate. e club will also feature seven private lounges for groups.

◗ Clubhouse and service-level renovations. e clubhouse will be updated for the rst time since Jacobs Field opened in 1994 and will focus on player amenities in performance, training and recovery.

◗ e administrative o ces, which will also be fully renovated for the rst time since 1994.

e Guardians will add a fth oor to the current four-level structure.

that,” he said. “Some of it is a ‘not needed to be decided right now’ type of thing.” is winter’s renovations will be the rst at Progressive Field since a $26 million facelift in 2015, when the team revamped the right- eld and bullpen areas, and added e Corner bar and neighborhood food

options. at project was privately nanced by the team and the club’s concessionaire, Delaware North. is project is much bigger, and it’s aimed at reaching a younger generation of fans who are just as likely to come to the ballpark to socialize as they are to watch baseball.

“We have one of the most beautiful ballparks in baseball to watch and enjoy baseball games,” said Chris Antonetti, the team’s president of baseball operations. “If we can put a compelling team on the eld, and marry those two things, hopefully more people will continue to come.”

e new-look upper deck will feature a beer garden down the left eld line, a new group outing space in right eld and new concession spaces, including two new “View Box” bars that will ank home plate and allow for more open sightlines from the upper deck concourse.

e new four-level East Ninth Street building in right eld will include a new kitchen and commissary for the Guardians concessionaire, as well as additional storage facilities for the ballpark. e rooftop will connect to the upper concourse and serve as a new group space.

e Guardians expect four other projects to be completed by Opening Day 2025:

◗ e Terrace Hub, which will replace the enclosed Terrace Club that overlooks left eld. e open-air hub will have terraced-ticketed seating on the 200 and 300 levels, and a Cleveland beer hall food and beverage ex-

For fans, the biggest in-season disruption will involve the main team shop, which will close in mid-December and remain closed throughout the 2024 season due to construction happening on the oors above it. e team shop — which is accessible from Ontario Street during the o season — is expected to remain open until Dec. 16, although the exact date could change.

Although that team shop accounts for about 50% of merchandise sales on game days, fans can buy merchandise at up to 10 other locations inside Progressive Field, depending on that day’s attendance. ere are two major walk-in stores on the lower level and the team will lean on those during the 2024 season.

“We are working on some type of alternative (team shop) for next season, but we’re not ready to unveil the exact plans as of yet,” said Brian Tillinger, the team’s assistant director of retail operations.

When asked if the main team shop will look the same in 2025, Tillinger said that’s still to be determined.

“ ere are some things that don’t align, timeline-wise, with what’s going on with the upper deck and on the eld, so that’s why there’s not 100% answers on

The Cleveland Guardians have started working on renovations at Progressive Field. JOE SCALZO A rendering shows plans for new upper decks with more space for fans to socialize. MANICA

The new-look upper deck will feature a beer garden down the left eld line, a new group outing space in right eld and new concession spaces.

Equity initiative debuts with 15-member cohort

Program is designed to give small-scale minority developers opportunities

April Bebee waited to dive into real estate until her children were adults. en she and a business partner started investing on the East Side of Cleveland, where she grew up.

“I always wanted to go into development,” said Bebee, who treated her 401(k) as seed money and continues to work a day job in clinical research. “But it wasn’t a safe enough space for me until the kids were grown and I had more time to explore it.”

Now, at 62, she’s part of the rst class of a program designed to give small-scale minority developers better access, technical skills and opportunities. After much planning, the Cleveland Equitable Development Initiative kicks o this week with a 15-member cohort.

ere’s a former NFL player.

ere are real estate agents, property managers and home renovators. ere are rst-generation landlords and people with construction in their blood.

“I am excited that the time is now and that we’re nally embarking on this journey,” said William Willis, senior director of development services for Cleveland Development Advisors, or CDA.

e lending arm of the Greater Cleveland Partnership, CDA worked with fellow nonpro t Village Capital Corp. to bring the program here. ey teamed up with Capital Impact Partners, a civic-minded lender that runs similar programs in Detroit and a handful of other cities.

e rst session will run through May. It pairs emerging practitioners with experienced developers and real estate professionals, with the goal of getting projects o the drawing board.

Willis said the team received 44 applications and interviewed two dozen people.

“ ese entrepreneurs possess a range of business experiences, but the intensive real estate development training and mentorship this program provides will signi cantly

enhance their chances of success,”

Yvette Ittu, CDA’s president and CEO, said in a written statement.

“By nurturing these motivated individuals, we will not only foster greater diversity and inclusion in our real estate community but will elevate their capabilities in development.”

Jermaine Brooks and his partners at WRJ Developers LLC have been working for years to launch their rst major project, an apartment building made of shipping containers on East 72nd Street, in Cleveland’s St. Clair-Superior neighborhood. On a nearby lot, they’re putting the nal touches on a shipping container duplex, the rst of 21 such rental homes they’re planning.

A program like the Equitable Development Initiative would have made a huge di erence in WRJ’s trajectory, helping Brooks and his partners navigate approvals, work through snarls and nd the right people to talk to about funding, construction and public processes.

“It’s like I tell new agents,” said Brooks, a real estate agent who began investing in rental homes in the late 1990s. “In real estate, you can either be a solo agent or you can join the team. If you’re a solo agent, you have to gure out every-

thing on your own. If you join the team, they give you all the keys to the castle.”

WRJ’s apartment project, a joint venture with the nonpro t Famicos Foundation, nally could start rising next year. Brooks and his partners also plan to renovate an apartment building at Superior Avenue and East 71st Street as modestly priced, or workforce, housing. e company purchased the historic property, which is vacant, for a little over $400,000 in February.

In addition to Bebee and Brooks, the inaugural class includes:

◗ Andre Bryan, the managing partner of BridgePort Group LLC, a management consulting, coaching and training rm based in Cleveland.

Akil Hameed, broker-owner of FASS Real Estate Services of Shaker Heights. Hameed is the current president of the Akron Cleveland Association of Realtors.

◗ Khalid Hawthorne, real estate development director for the Famicos Foundation, a nonpro t focused on East Side revitalization and housing.

Jimmie Hicks III, project director for housing rehabilitation at Start Right Community Development Corp., a nonpro t organization in Cleveland Heights.

Meijer buys Geauga Lake site for $4.9M

Stan Bullard

Meijer Inc., the food and soft goods retailer based in Grand Rapids, Michigan, has landed another site in its expansion into Northeast Ohio, this time on the western end of the former Geauga Lake Amusement Park.

e company in the last week of September closed on the purchase of a 15-acre site for $4.9 million, according to Geauga County land records. e proposed site is in Bainbridge Township near Solon and high-income Geauga County households. Industrial Commercial Properties (ICP) of May eld Heights, which

is redeveloping about half the landmark park, was the seller.

Meijer spokesman Frank Guglielmi con rmed the shopping giant purchased the site. However, in an email, he noted a timeline for construction and the store’s opening is not available.

Je Markley, a Bainbridge Township trustee, said in a phone interview that he would expect the Meijer to open in 2025, about the same time as a planned store from Menards, which already bought land at ICP’s “Geauga Lake District” redevelopment of the ground beloved by coaster fans.

“I’m pleased with what they

put together,” Markley said, “although it’s hard to get large companies to deviate from their normal designs.” Meijer agreed to display images from Geauga Lake history on a wall where it normally puts images showing the history of the family-owned company. One outside wall will use the old Geauga Lake script that’s reminiscent of the shape of roller coasters for its Meijer name.

Bainbridge trustees approved Meijer plans earlier this year, he said.

Austin Semarjian, a vice president of ICP, said in a phone interview he believes both big-box retailers will begin construction

◗ Dominic Ozanne II, project manager for Ozanne Construction Co. He’s a third-generation member of a family business and a residential landlord on the side. He returned to Cleveland in 2017 after several years of working in nance in Chicago.

“Real estate’s very much a game of relationships,” he said. “Cleveland’s not a huge city, but it does take relationships and certain knowledge to get a real estate development project done. … Even if I had all the money in the world and a set of plans and was just ready to go, there would still be hurdles.”

◗ Evin Peavy of DC Kelly Investments, who has a background in house- ipping and home renovation. Peavy also has been involved with multifamily and mixed-use projects.

◗ Tiffany Hollinger, a real estate agent, investor and nancial adviser with experience in banking, house- ipping and property management.

Ariane Kirkpatrick, president and CEO of the AKA Team, a construction company based in Cleveland. She’s also the founder and CEO of Harvest of Ohio, a cannabis company.

Hosanna Mahaley, founder and CEO of Legacy RED Group, a family company focused on renovations and a ordable housing. A Cleveland native who grew up on the East Side, Mahaley lived in Chicago, Atlanta and Washington, D.C., before coming home a few years ago.

Now she aspires to develop high-quality, a ordable senior housing projects in the city.

“My grandmother, she taught us that she really wanted all of her grandchildren to be in real estate,” said Mahaley, who brought her own grandson into the business.

“My grandmother remembered her parents being sharecroppers.

… She felt that owning real estate was the only way to have freedom. at’s the way she talked about it.”

Jimi Oluwabiyi, a residential developer with experience in multifamily projects and property management.

soon, but the companies are building their own structures.

“We’re excited about this,” Semarjian said of the sale. “We’re continuing to get additional interest in retail and housing to continue the vibrant development of the site.”

ICP acquired the 377-acre site from Cedar Fair in 2020 for a price that has not been disclosed.

Pulte Group acquired most of the east side of the property located in Aurora. It’s currently building ranch-style townhouses on a big part of the site, although earlier phases contained both houses and townhouses.

Before those transactions, the amusement park land, later joined by the site of the former water park, had sat empty for

◗ Christopher Roberts, an accountant who works as a senior nance manager for Amazon, the e-commerce giant. His real estate experience includes nonpro t board work related to low-income housing and mixed-use redevelopment.

Dontez Sanders, a former Cleveland Browns player and founder of DS Group, a property management company. He buys, rehabs and sells apartment buildings and rental homes.

Khrystalynn Shefton, chief of growth and expansion for Birthing Beautiful Communities, a nonprofit group focused on providing prenatal and postpartum support for Black mothers and babies. e organization plans to build a birthing center in Cleveland’s Hough neighborhood.

Bebee, who formed Phoenix Development Group LLC in 2016, has renovated a modest apartment building and a nearby house in Glenville. With deeper training and support, she aims to take on bigger projects and to expose nearby residents to potential job opportunities in real estate and construction.

“It’s not always someone from outside coming in,” she said. “We want to really engage folks from the neighborhood if we can. One of my biggest objectives is showing someone from the neighborhood … that it’s not so far removed that it couldn’t be possible to achieve.”

years following the housing collapse and 2008 nancial crisis. Cedar Fair, the operator of Cedar Point in Sandusky and other amusement parks around the country, shut the amusement park in 2007. e water park closed in 2016.

e area next to the lake had served Cleveland and Akron residents as a place for picnicking, swimming and shing since the 1870s, long before the coasters and its classic midway went into the mix.

e city of Aurora also is pursuing a plan for a park on a portion of the old amusement park site in that suburb. It would provide lake access and have a building for mementos of the park the city has collected for years.

Michelle Jarboe

A forklift driver navigates Sherwin-Williams Co.’s headquarters construction site in downtown Cleveland in September. A new program aims to diversify the ranks of the development industry by helping small-scale, minority practitioners grow. | MICHELLE JARBOE

Hertz Investment Group loses control of Fifth Third Center tower

By Michelle Jarboe

A lender is taking over Fifth ird Center, a downtown Cleveland building that’s another victim of rising interest rates, renancing hurdles and broad o ce-market uncertainty.

Prime Finance, the lender on the 27-story tower, entered the winning bid for control of the property at a foreclosure auction on Friday, Sept. 29, according to a source familiar with the situation. at auction, set at Prime’s request, wasn’t a traditional sale. e collateral up for bid was the membership interests in the limited liability company that owns the skyscraper.

at means the sale isn’t likely to show up in public records. But the upshot is the same: ere’s a new landlord at 600 Superior Ave., at a time when at least a half-dozen downtown Cleveland o ce buildings are teeteringnancially or controlled by lenders or outside receivers.

Jonathan Cuticelli of Hilco Real Estate, the company that handled the Fifth ird Center auction, con rmed that a sale took place outside of a New York City courthouse. He declined to identify the buyer or divulge the amount of the successful bid.

“It sold,” he said. “ e new owner . . . will maintain and operate the building to keep the o ce building alive.”

From the outset, Prime Finance was the logical suitor.

Public records show that the company provided a nearly $57.3 million mortgage to Fifth ird Center owner Hertz Investment Group in mid-2019. Under certain circumstances, the loan agreement gave Prime the right to go after Hertz’s ownership stake outside of the courts, using a relatively swift process known as a Uniform Commercial Code foreclosure.

at means Prime was positioned to credit bid, o ering part or all of what it was owed to gain command of the property. e lender did not respond to an inquiry about what it paid — and what it plans to do with the building.

Prime has o ces in New York, Chicago and San Francisco. A private lender, the company provides commercial real estate debt and invests in mortgage-backed securities.

e sale probably won’t make much of a di erence to existing or prospective occupants at Fifth ird Center, where law rm McDonald Hopkins is the largest tenant. e JLL brokerage is still handling leasing at the roughly 508,000-square-foot tower, which is about 80% full.

Occupancy at the building dipped as low as 68.6% in recent years, listing records show.

Timothy McCarthy, a Hertz asset manager responsible for the building, did not respond to a request for comment. Nobody answered the phone at Hertz’s headquarters in California.

e major o ce landlord is under pressure across the United States after struggling to sell o buildings and re nance its debt. Israeli bondholders who invested in a subset of Hertz’s portfolio have been weighing whether to ask for early repayment, something they’re allowed to do because of concerns about Hertz a liate Hertz Properties Group Ltd.’s ability to stay a oat.

In a Sept. 28 presentation to investors posted on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange’s website, Hertz laid out a litany of challenges: Many lenders are shying away from o ces and being much more conservative about deal terms. Buyers are struggling to secure acquisition nancing. And appraisers are assuming higher vacancy rates and greater risk, driving valuations down.

Hertz has been trying to shed or re nance buildings in Louisiana, Maryland, Mississippi and Missouri, the investor presentation notes. But potential purchase o ers are coming in just at or below existing debt levels. In several cases, Hertz is in default or headed in that direction.

Midroog, an Israel-based subsidiary of credit ratings agency Moody’s, has downgraded Hertz’s debt twice since June. at puts

Hertz in technical default, a huge barrier to re nancing.

“In today’s market, only the best assets and the best sponsors can realistically receive nancing for the asset type in the company,” Hertz wrote in the investor presentation.

Hertz initially tapped the Israeli bond market for nancing in 2017, before the pandemic upended the o ce sector. Now those bonds are trading well below their repayment value.

e privately held company considered going public in Israel in 2019. But Hertz walked away from that e ort in early 2022, according to regulatory lings. Founder Judah Hertz died in February 2021. e company is now led by his son William, also known as Zev.

Since then, Hertz has shifted some of its attention to apartments and away from trophy ofce buildings in mid-sized cities like Cleveland. e company unsuccessfully tried to sell Fifth ird Center in 2022. at listing, through CBRE Group Inc., did not carry an asking price.

Hertz still owns two downtown Cleveland properties: e North Pointe O ce Complex at Lakeside Avenue and East Ninth Street and the Skylight O ce Tower on West Second Street.

e mortgage on North Pointe is set to mature in September of next year, according to loan-servicing records available through real estate data provider CoStar Group. ose records indicate that Hertz is up to date on payments.

At Skylight O ce Tower, Hertz’s mortgage is scheduled to mature in October 2025. at loan is on a watchlist because of concerns about occupancy, rental rates and expenses, based on CoStar’s records. e Sherwin-Williams Co., which is building a new headquarters tower west of Public Square, leases about 30% of the roughly 320,000-square-foot property.

e North Pointe and Skylight O ce Tower loans were bundled with other commercial real estate debt and used to back securities sold to investors.

HERTZ INVESTMENT GROUP

Guardians’ attendance saw a big jump in 2023

By Joe Scalzo

ere’s a scene at the beginning of the movie “Elf,” where Ed Asner’s Santa Claus stands in front of his elves and says, “We’ve had another very successful year. So, after all that hard work, it’s time to start preparations for next Christmas!”

Alex King, the Cleveland Guardians’ EVP of marketing and brands strategy, can relate.

“ at’s a funny analogy — and de nitely true,” he said, chuckling.

“However the season ends — whether it’s the postseason or the regular season — it always ends with a crash. And it’s like, ‘Oh, my gosh. OK. Here we are.’”

It’s not a perfect analogy — King’s team actually starts 2024 planning in July — but for the rst time since before the pandemic, the Guardians really did have a successful year when it comes to their most important metric: attendance.

Cleveland averaged 23,513 fans per game at Progressive Field this season, a nearly 40% increase over 2022 (17,050) and its highest gure since 2018, when the Indians averaged 24,083, per ESPN.

e Guardians’ total attendance was actually up more than 40%, with the team drawing 1,834,068 fans over 78 home dates in 2023, compared to 1,295,869 over 76 dates in 2022.

Although the Guardians (76-86) nished with their lowest win total since 2012 — not counting 2020, when the pandemic shortened the schedule to 60 games — they got a boost at the box o ce from last year’s postseason run, this year’s game-shortening rule changes and several successful ticket offers, including the Ballpark Pass, which o ered unlimited standing room only seats for $49 per month.

“Our hope is that this isn’t a one-year anomaly,” King said. “We want to continue that momentum.”

Here’s a closer look at three of those factors:

Ticket offers

e Ballpark Pass was an immediate hit, selling out its allotment even for frigid April games, and will return in 2024.

e Guardians also strategically o ered some single-game discounts tied to the on- eld performance, like when they sold $11 upper deck seats for an April Yankees series (in honor of Jose Ramirez’s jersey number), $8 o tickets for a May series against the Cardinals (in honor of Josh Naylor hitting go-ahead homers in the eighth inning of three straight games) and $11 tickets for the nal six home games (in honor of Terry Francona’s 11 years as Cleveland’s manager).

“We tried to tie those o ers to things that were already getting a lot of attention,” King said. “You get the attention of people who are already excited and wanting to come down to the ballpark.”

Group sales

e COVID-19 pandemic, combined with last year’s winter lockout, caused group sales to plummet compared to 2019. But group sales started to rebound in 2022 and the Guardians saw a 20% yearover-year increase this summer.

“People started wanting to get back together and do things, whether that was a company, a non-pro t or a university,” King said.

Rule changes

MLB added a pitch clock this season to speed play and saw immediate results, with this year’s game times down 24 minutes to 2:40 for nine innings. e league also limited defensive shifts and increased the size of the bases in hopes of generating more action.

“ e rule changes have been universally well-received,” King said. “Not just the pace of play and the time of the game, but the action that it creates. Stolen bases are up, there’s less time between pitches, there are more balls in play. ere were a lot of changes that helped make the product more exciting.”

ose changes contributed to a 9.2% rise in MLB’s overall attendance this year, with teams averaging 29,176 fans per game.

e league’s average attendance is still below the record high of 32,785 in 2007, but MLB drew more than 70 million total fans for the rst time in six years.

“Here, locally, we’re hopeful that with the on- eld changes, the value of ticket o ers like the Ballpark Pass, and the (improved) oneld performance that we’ll be in a really good spot,” King said.

e Guardians have already begun work on the next round of Progressive Field renovations, with two projects set to be completed by Opening Day: a revamped upper deck and a new building on East Ninth Street. Like many MLB teams, the Guardians want to satisfy fans looking for a more social experience, building on the popular Corner Bar concept from the 2015-16 renovations.

“We have di erent groups of fans,” King said. “While there are de nitely still fans who want to be locked into the game, there’s also a segment of fans who are there to hang with a group of friends and want a more casual experience.”

One thing the Guardians won’t be adding in 2024? Facial recognition technology. e Browns already use facial recognition software for entry and concessions at Cleveland Browns Stadium, and the Philadelphia Phillies started a pilot program at Citizens Bank Park, King said the Guardians are still studying the idea.

“ ere’s a lot of intrigue around it, but there are a lot of question marks, too,” said King, who said the Guardians sent a team to Philadelphia to learn more about the technology. “We’re de nitely going to monitor that, but we have no speci c plans to add it right now.”

For voters, responsibility goes beyond casting a ballot

Safeguarding election integrity depends on efforts that begin long before the voting starts

For Cuyahoga County elections director Anthony Perlatti, one aspect of the job has, in recent years, taken up more of his time.

He has answered numerous public records requests from those who question the results of statewide and national elections. It’s a process that doesn’t always pay dividends, he said, but it’s necessary.

“We’ll do a Q&A to give the facts and reality,” Perlatti said. “ rough that, you still have deniers, but there are some converts who say that the

narrative they heard doesn’t apply in Cuyahoga County. I would love for them to believe that for the entire state.”

e integrity of the election process, amid a range of e orts to thwart those processes, increasingly takes up the time and is top of mind for everyone from public o cials to voters.

Countering disinformation is a full-time job, said Frank LaRose, Ohio’s secretary of state, and it’s critical in building con dence within the electorate.

See VOTERS on Page 12

|

By Douglas J. Guth

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“It can be like Whac-a-Mole. There’s a reactive part because you just get swamped with too much false information.”

Frank LaRose, Ohio’s secretary of state

Voters must diversify their media sources

Early newspapers in the United States were operated by political parties, and it was not until the muckraking era of the early 20th century that readers were introduced to neutral and oppositional journalism. at business model worked when any media market could support, at most, a few outlets because those outlets had incentives to target the ideological center.

First cable and then the internet facilitated fragmentation of the media, and market incentives shifted. Rather than competing for the middle, media outlets found partisan and ideological niches. e most important observation is that this is a demand-driven process.

It is psychologically uncomfortable for people to accept information inconsistent with their beliefs, so they prefer to reject it or, better yet, nd outlets that never expose them to challenging information and merely reinforce beliefs with claims that range from dubious to false.

In a media market with two newspapers and three television stations, selective receptivity is di cult. In the fragmented media environment of the 2020s, consumers choose between news sources of any ideological disposition to shield them from uncomfortable information, or they may simply rely on social media algorithms that reinforce by implicit design.

In the simplest case, consumers receive misinformation that reinforces their existing beliefs because outlets cover unconrmed claims as though they are con rmed, and then, since the correction would be ideologically inconvenient, it receives limited, if any coverage. And news consumers never notice.

When claims are su ciently in ammatory, the result is violence.

In the aftermath of the 2020

election, Republican-aligned media outlets provided breathless coverage of every conspiracy theory about fraud, without covering the debunkings, leaving their audience with the false belief that the 2020 election was stolen. e result was Jan. 6.

On Aug. 9, 2014, Michael Brown died in an altercation with the Ferguson police. His associate, Dorian Johnson, falsely stated that Brown was killed while trying to surrender. Despite the dubiousness of the claim, left-leaning outlets covered it extensively and uncritically. When the Department of Justice, under Eric Holder, debunked the claim, left-leaning news organizations did little or nothing to correct the in ammatory falsehoods they spread, with violence the wake.

ese examples are unique in the scope and extremity of their consequences, not in their process. e most tantalizing misinformation is so precisely because it in ames, and the underlying cognitive incentives have always made it di cult for people to correct their misapprehensions. However, the fragmented media environment makes it too easy to avoid corrective information.

Indeed, avoidance has become the default because market incentives align with perverse cognitive incentives as consumers demand reinforcement, not correction.

ere is one solution: Readers must seek out sources from multiple ideological perspectives. Gone are the days when one could read a single major newspaper and be passably informed.

e responsibility falls on the reader, to a degree that it has not in living memory.

An individual can take individual responsibility. An individual cannot solve the country’s misinformation problem, but an individual can choose correction.

Historically, the United States has moved toward enfranchising more and more voters.

When the Constitution was signed, only white male property owners over 21 were permitted to vote. at right has expanded to include people of color, women and 18to 20-year-olds. Unfortunately, the movement in Ohio has been in the opposite direction, making it harder to vote.

When I moved to Ohio 20 years ago, I found it challenging to vote. I grew up in Wisconsin, which has Election Day registration. Ohio requires that all voters register 30 days before an election. I didn’t learn about that rule early enough and was unable to vote in my rst Ohio election. A few years later, Ohio enacted one of the rst voter ID laws.

in Ohio

ter and vote on the same day at the very beginning of the early voting period. In 2014, the early voting period was shortened and now early voting begins after the close of voter registration. As of April 2023, the day before the election was eliminated from early voting, voteby-mail ballots had to be requested four days earlier, and ballots had six fewer days to arrive at the Board of Elections via the mail.

And now, despite the complete lack of evidence of voter impersonation at the polls, Ohio has the most stringent voter ID law in the country.   ere is no proof that this new photo ID law has led to increased election security. Instead, it has caused more people’s votes to be uncounted. Five times more provisional ballots were rejected in Cuyahoga County due to a lack of identi cation in the August special election than in the November 2022 mid-terms. But the number one reason that provisional ballots are rejected is because the voter was not registered to begin with.

AVR registers citizens to vote unless they opt out when they get a new driver’s license or access some other government service (this varies by state). Voter participation rates in those states have increased. Ohio requires that voters opt in at the BMV. is di erence sounds subtle, but it does make a di erence.

Eligible Ohio voters may decline registration if they think it will take too long, or if they think they are already registered at their current address. at’s a common mistake voters make. ey tell the post o ce or another government agency they have moved and expect their voting record to change.

Another way to make voting easier would be to allow voters to request a vote-by-mail ballot online. Voters can register online and update their addresses. Why can’t they request ballots that way? Many voters always vote by mail. Why do they have to ll out a new application for each and every election? Mulling over a ballot gives voters a chance to really look into candidates for school board and municipal courts, as well as sort through information and misinformation that is in their social media feeds.

Voting in Ohio continues to become more complicated. For almost a decade, voters could regis-

Almost half of states (24) have automatic voter registration (AVR).

Simple legislative changes would make it easier for more Ohioans to participate in our democracy. Let’s call on our Ohio legislators to act.

Meredith Hellmer is president, board of directors, of Northeast Ohio Voter Advocates.

Justin Buchler is an associate professor of political science at Case Western Reserve University.

Let’s reverse the trend and make it easier to vote

Election workers collect ballots at a drop-off polling location in Columbus on Nov. 8, 2022. | BLOOMBERG

Despite the complete lack of evidence of voter impersonation at the polls, Ohio has the most stringent voter ID law in the country.

CNN broadcasts House Speaker Nancy Pelosi discussing the impeachment of Donald Trump on a House charge of inciting insurrection in January 2021. BLOOMBERG

Nonpro t journalism one solution to increase information accuracy

In an era of daily disinformation and misinformation being spread by politicians and their online minions, the average voter has di culty telling truth from ction. Where can voters go for trustworthy information?

Formerly, we relied on a combination of national and local news to interpret events and give us facts. However, those days are waning, and citizens are struggling to pierce the cloud of calculated lies.

One solution is viable local nonpro t news organizations that are sprouting up across the country and throughout Ohio. People trust what is locally owned, operated and accountable to the local constituency. ese organizations also are more transparent about their operations and therefore more trustworthy.

Americans once turned to national news sources to decipher fact from ction but that is no longer the case. A report from the Knight Foundation and Gallup released in May 2022 shows Ameri-

cans holding local news in higher regard than national news.

“Six in 10 Americans say they have more trust in local than national news to give them information they can use in their daily life, and nearly eight in 10 (78%) say they have more trust in local news to give them information they need to get involved in their community,” the survey noted.

e problem is, however, that local media, especially local newspapers, are disappearing, thereby leaving local news consumers adrift about ballot issues and other pertinent state and local concerns.

According to a 2022 study done by Northwestern University, we are losing an average of two newspapers a week, and by 2025 we will have lost one-third of the local newspapers nationwide.

e gures are stark. More than one- fth of the nation lives in a news desert with little to no access to local news. is situation becomes a petri dish for the growth

of misinformation and disinformation.

As a result, according to Texas Tribune founder Evan Smith, “We live in two Americas: one informed and one not. It’s in the not-informed America that misinformation and conspiracy theories have really taken root. is is how we got to a moment where truth isn’t truth, facts aren’t fact,

and reality is a subjective construct. is is poison coursing through our veins. I’ve never been more sure that robust, credible, independent local news is the antidote to the poison.”

We need good information to become involved. “Studies show that areas with fewer local news outlets have lower levels of civic engagement, voter turnout and

political accountability,” according to e Journalist’s Resource.

An important solution to combat misinformation and disinformation on a state, regional and local level is locally owned and operated nonpro t news organizations that have a commitment to hyper-local news and not to the pro ts of traditional news organizations.

Ohio is seeing a growth of these, such as Signal Ohio, a network of independent, community-led nonpro t newsrooms. It is supported by a coalition of Ohio organizations and the American Journalism Project.

ere also is Eye on Ohio and the Ohio Capital Journal dedicated to providing trustworthy state news. Even in Southeastern Ohio, the least populated portion of the state, the Athens County Independent is a nonpro t news outlet celebrating its rst anniversary of operation.

Nonpro t news organizations must be encouraged and supported. More must be created.

ey provide in-depth local news and because they are locally based, they are trusted more than other new sources. ey belong to the people they serve.

Working to advance racial equity and economic mobility for the next generation in the Great Lakes region. JoyceFdn.org

Thomas S. Hodson is director emeritus of WOUB Public Media and the E.W. Scripps School of Journalism at Ohio University.

BLOOMBERG

We are losing an average of two newspapers a week, and by 2025 we will have lost one-third of the local newspapers nationwide.

FIGHTING MISINFORMATION AND DISINFORMATION

VOTERS

Last December, LaRose’s o ce launched @VerifyOhio, a digital outreach initiative to bust myths and answer common questions throughout the 2023-24 election cycle. Amid the run-up to Ohio’s Aug. 8 special election, when Issue 1 was garnering nationwide attention, the platform fact-checked information about polling places closing early — it wasn’t true — along with providing details on statewide voter-fraud prevention.

@VerifyOhio works alongside county election boards and nonpro t groups such as the League of Women Voters to counter bad information, even as more disinformation streams in directly from social media, special interest groups and bad actors attempting to sway public perception.

State employees monitor Twitter and additional online platforms, a method that last November revealed a photo of a burned-out van in Hamilton County. @VerifyOhio did a reverse image search on the van — which allegedly contained a shipment of ballots — discovering that the image derived from a 2022 story about a Texas highway re.

“ ese are the things we encounter,” LaRose said. “It can be like Whac-a-Mole. ere’s a reactive part because you just get swamped with too much false information. So we ood the zone with accurate info. We say, ‘ is is disproven, this is false.’ Get your election information from a credible journalist rather than some blogger.”

To ensure reliable data around local elections, Cuyahoga County monitors polling places on the day of the vote, said County Executive Chris Ronayne. e county o cial also speaks to area high school students about voting and why it’s important they use objective information sources to research issues.

“We are transparent about reaching everyone about their voting rights, and where and when to vote,” Ronayne said. “I don’t want to lose anyone who didn’t know there was a registration deadline, or that early voting had closed. We need to make sure we have the facts without just relying on digital communications.”

Ronayne also envisions an ideal scenario where citizens, the media and public o cials access the same accurate, complete information without relying on slanted viewpoints.

“ ere are live-streamed meetings where a reporter or citizen can feel out the nuances (of information) rst-hand,” Ronayne said. “It’s a two-way street for people to do that work, and goes back to making sure the information we provide is as accessible as possible.”

Disinformation vs. misinformation

Disinformation, misinformation and “fake news” have had a considerable in uence on a wide range of global, national and local events, including the COVID-19 pandem-

ic, the 2020 presidential elections and the ongoing war in Ukraine.

While bad actors are key drivers of this phenomenon, anyone can boost and amplify disinformation campaigns when they engage with bots, share manipulated images or post videos that were digitally altered through arti cial intelligence. Whether maliciously spread or shared unwittingly, there is no question that disinformation has widened the division among Americans, said election o cials, academic experts and ordinary citizens interviewed by Crain’s Cleveland Business.

Nor is the damage caused by disinformation contained just to public discourse. It causes people to refuse life-saving vaccines, scapegoat certain groups or cast a vote under false pretenses. e attack on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021 — by supporters who believed debunked claims of election fraud by former President Donald Trump — is an example of the dangers inherent in the dissemination of false information, observers said.

e good news? Americans are not powerless when it comes to opposing disinformation and its distribution. Individuals eager to combat it must recognize its signs and understand the factors behind its recent rise. Education is critical ahead of an election cycle that already is beset by misleading claims and a wave of anti-voter laws, Perlatti said.

Perlatti is at the epicenter of this work, nearly three years after Trump and his supporters asserted that President Joe Biden had been elected illegitimately. Ohio, which voted to re-elect Trump in 2020, mostly escaped accusations of rigged elections. Yet Perlatti’s o ce has been working to mitigate any future rumormongering through e orts that include educational outreach.

“For the most part, people in Cuyahoga County had con dence in elections, and they still do,” Perlatti said. “But the national rhetoric has become so polarized — there’s so much disinformation, or people not wanting to believe facts, that it’s made it challenging to make sure the public understands that the same processes that have been going on for years are still valid and good.”

Fighting disinformation and conspiracy theories remains a challenge, Perlatti said. According to the Poynter Institute, about 70% of Republicans still question the validity of the 2020 presidential vote. “Free, fair and accessible” are county board watchwords, a slogan his o ce seeks to bolster with transparent operations as well as regularly scheduled myth-busting events, Perlatti said.

Elections are safeguarded through a combination of state and federal laws, along with Ohio Secretary of State directives and area municipal charters. However, lawsuits centered on state election maps and other issues have muddied the waters, while new laws such as Ohio’s House Bill 458 have drawn re as critics say they risk reducing residents’ access to the polls.

Mark Alexander (top), a trainer at the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections, shows poll workers how to set up election equipment on Sept. 24.

Matt Weber (above), a trainer at the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections, leads a class for returning poll workers.

Justin Buchler (left) is an associate professor of political science at Case Western Reserve University. | PHOTOS BY GUS CHAN

“Now it’s easy in the era of fragmented social media to nd information that will reinforce your beliefs and predispositions.”

Justin

Buchler, who studies elections at Case Western Reserve University

“We deal with education on Ohio law, and how some rules in other states are not applicable here,” said Perlatti, who was named the county’s election board director in 2019. “Even from county to county, there is voting equipment coming from di erent vendors. We don’t all have the same system … . Honing in on those details to the voter is not the easiest thing.”

Equipment security is an ever-present talking point for the election board, Perlatti said. Despite allegations that have surfaced in Ohio and other states, none of the county’s recently implemented ballot scanners are connected to the Internet; that is against the law. A modern era of checks and balances includes public equipment tests, as well as tours of the board’s Euclid Avenue facility.

“We’re glad to give tours, but when you’re explaining what’s going on to people and they still don’t want to believe it, that can become frustrating,” Perlatti said. “Anyone can hop on social media and push this stu . It gets out there fast, and some people just shop for the message they want.”

Fighting the false messages

e U.S. political environment is further eroded when faulty information or outright lies come straight from the major political parties, said Justin Buchler, who studies elections as an associate professor at Case Western Reserve University.

Trump’s election falsehoods are not the only case of politicians spreading untruths, whether by design or otherwise. What’s more, disinformation is not restricted to a single political party, Buchler said.

e fatal police shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, became a ash point, with Elizabeth Warren and then Sen. Kamala Harris, among others, tweeting out statements containing disproven claims about the 2014 incident.

At the time, witnesses claimed that a white Ferguson o cer named Darren Wilson shot and killed Brown while the Black man’s hands were raised in surrender. President Barack Obama’s Department of Justice discredited the racially tinged accusations against Wilson, stating that Wilson shot Brown in self-defense after the 18-year-old grabbed him by the neck.

Violence can result when such misinformed rhetoric leaks into the public sphere. Although riots made headlines during the Ferguson case, a strain of damage that is less visible occurs when people internalize disinformation, Buchler said.

“Who read the Department of Justice report?” Buchler said. “ is was an important case given the issues of race and policing, and how that goes into democratic politics. is story was just false.”

Social and political polarization has increased in tandem with digital technologies. Beyond the issue of anyone with a computer or smartphone having the

ability to post fake news, technology also leads citizens to cloister themselves within information bubbles. Not only are these people con rming false beliefs, they are not being o ered any opinions to the contrary, Buchler said.

“People then go into a spiral of reinforcement,” he said. “ at was much harder to do in previous eras when there was one newspaper and three television stations. Market incentives at the time led journalists to pitch stories to the middle, meaning people had similar information sources. Now it’s easy in the era of fragmented social media to nd information that will reinforce your beliefs and predispositions.”

A version of the truth

Disinformation and misinformation are closely related, although there are some crucial di erences. Misinformation is generally considered false information shared without an intention to mislead, whereas with disinformation, the intention to deceive is high.

Ultimately, “intention” is the key distinction between the two terms, Buchler said.

“Knowing intent can be hard, given that high-level political operators may believe false information,” he said. “We can trace information to a Russian or Chinese (perpetrator) and say that info was meant to deceive. But with a politician, if information is false, that person may believe it.”

Content including video, photographs and social media posts are often utilized to fabricate disinformation. Eddith Dashiell, director of the E.W. Scripps School of Journalism at Ohio University, points to Republican attempts to recast the 2021 U.S. Capitol riot. During a May 2021 hearing aired on C-SPAN, Georgia Rep. Andrew Clyde suggested that the insurrection was far less serious than it had been portrayed.

“Watching the TV footage of those who entered the Capitol and walked through Statuary Hall showed people in an orderly fashion staying between the stanchions and ropes taking videos and pictures,” Clyde said. “You know, if you didn’t know the TV footage was a video from January the 6th, you would actually think it was a normal tourist visit.”

Considering C-SPAN provides viewers unedited access to congressional hearings, it was depressingly simple for Clyde to peddle his version of the truth, said Dashiell. Outlets like CNN immediately discredited the congressman’s claims, but the damage had been done.

“Mainstream media is pointing out false information, because it can back up where it’s faulty,” Dashiell said. “We’re at the point in society where media is bolder when a story or position is based on falsehoods.”

The social media problem

Viewers distrustful of a narrow conservative or liberal slant may turn to social media, but that

comes with its own costs. Algorithm-generated opinions can send consumers down a rabbit hole of bias no di erent from Fox or MSNBC, said Connor Hensley, a North Ridgeville native studying mechanical engineering at Ohio State University.

Hensley and his peers are deeply wired into social media and streaming services for their news, he said. Even if his friends tap into more traditional sources as well, Hensley worries about the impact of technology on the Gen Z mindset.

“It’s absolutely on my mind, because there’s a massive amount of disinformation out there,” Hensley said. “I’ve seen blatant lies translated on TikTok and Instagram that need to be debunked. If you get one piece of garbage in the app, those next couple of things that come up when you open the app again will be garbage, too.”

Social media is the least-trusted news source in the U.S., due to a high concentration of easily circulated disinformation shared either unknowingly or deliberately. As about half of Gen Z consumers get their news online, according to an August 2022 survey from Statista, they are also responsible for vetting sources for biased or inaccurate data, Hensley said.

Hensley uses the Ground News aggregator to get links to other sources reporting on the same news. Visitors clicking on a story are given detailed “bias ratings,” a seven-tier system that comprises the entire political spectrum.

More candor from public ocials would go a long way in earning Hensley’s con dence. U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown, a Cleveland Democrat, often highlights local and national issues that go largely unreported, he said.

Which brings Hensley to the upcoming election cycle, currently marked by a proposal from Republican presidential hopeful Vivek Ramaswamy to raise the U.S. voting age to 25.

“Please vote,” Hensley said. “Young people feel down about issues and then don’t show up to the ballot. at’s a feedback loop of insanity.”

And citizens have another responsibility, too, than just getting out to cast a vote. ey are responsible for educating themselves.

If sunlight is the best disinfectant, as a Supreme Court justice said about transparency more than a century ago, then media literacy can burn away even the most blatant untruths, said Dashiell, the Scripps journalism school director. Fact checkers like Snopes can help readers ascertain a claim’s credibility, providing context and quotes, while the public should be more discerning in how it consumes its news.

“ at takes a little extra e ort, and we’re in an instant grati cation phase where we want everything quick and fast,” Dashiell said. “ ere is so much news, but it is the responsibility of the public to look at di erent sources that they normally wouldn’t.”

How do we protect ourselves from bad information?

Douglas J. Guth

False and distorted news has been part of media history long before the term “clickbait” entered the public lexicon, and it can all be an extension of propaganda. When voters are going to the polls or sending in their ballots, that deception can have real consequences.

ose who study and track the evolution of disinformation campaigns deliberately misleading voters and misinformation missing or incomplete information that gets repeated say there are important ways people can evaluate the information they receive: get details from various sources.

Cable news programs and personalities are high-prole sources for bending news to t a narrative (disinformation), but erroneous details stated as fact (misinformation) that aren’t corrected with the same vigor can be just as damaging.

ere are ways to evaluate information, Ohio media and elections leaders say, that will increase our literacy to gain a more complete understanding of the facts:

Recognize the differences between disinformation and misinformation: A breaking news story is likely to initially have incomplete information, so waiting until more details emerge can lead to a clearer picture of a situation to avoid misinformation. Evaluate whether the source of the details has a vested interest in the outcome so you can avoid spreading their disinformation. “Intention” is the key distinction between the two terms, says Case Western professor Justin Buchler.

An informed vote on a candidate or issue requires some education about background and consequences; invest the time necessary to seek out answers from several reputable sources that cite the basis for their knowledge. “We ood the zone with accurate info,” says Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose. “… Get your election information from a credible journalist rather than some blogger.”

Expand your media literacy beyond social media, which is a prime place for both misinformation and disinformation to ourish. e condensed nature of posts, the immediacy of publishing and the ability to be anonymous can fan the ames of controversy, increasing engagement but harming accuracy. “ at takes a little extra e ort, and we’re in an instant grati cation phase where we want everything quick and fast,” says Eddith Dashiell, director of the journalism program at Ohio University.

Pay attention to whether your favorite sources are committed to correcting inaccurate information in a visible way and whether they use their time and/or space to explain more complicated issues or dense processes. “If you don’t have multiple information sources, you will miss out on corrective information,” says Buchler.

The democratic process requires participation. Register to vote and cast ballots in local, state and national elections. Ask questions about voting procedures if you see something you don’t understand — election boards often hold open houses for people to see how poll work is conducted. “ ere are livestreamed meetings where a reporter or citizen can feel out the nuances (of information) rst-hand,” says Cuyahoga County Executive Chris Ronayne.

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UNITED WAY

“ e question is, how do we add value? How do we get out of crisis mode? How do we get in front of the problems?” Jordan posited to Crain’s, in her rst interview since she took over at United Way in June 2022.

ose questions, Jordan points out, are ones she asked after she took over the leadership role, which involved months of listening to her sta , board members, clients and other organizations with which the United Way partners.

She wants the United Way—with its resources, institutional knowledge and position—to focus on “the problems that no one organization can solve,” including the critical long-term goal of vastly improving the region’s economic equity and economic mobility.

It is a di erent way of working for the United Way, said Jordan, who has a long history in the nonpro t eld as a former president and CEO of the Centers for Families and Children.

But she believes the organization is uniquely poised for the work because of the organization’s years spent helping residents and being

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directly involved with the community’s on-the-ground nonpro ts.

e ultimate goal going forward is to help “people reach a level of net income and net worth so that they can withstand a crisis in their own lives which means making enough to pay for basic needs, pay taxes, and have something in savings,” Jordan said.

“Our role should be to interrogate those systems to really understand what policies and what practices are making it easy or hard to have upward mobility in our region,” she added.

Originally called “the Community Chest,” the United Way of Greater Cleveland is often credited as one of the rst in the country to centralize and streamline civic philanthropic giving.

And while making any changes to an organization is di cult, it’s especially true for one with this sort of long-standing history. And re-imagining part of the core mission of the United Way is not a simple task.

Shortly before the COVID-19 pandemic, under long-time leader August “Augie” Napoli, the organization did away with the approach of distributing tens of millions of dollars in annual funding to large swaths of onthe-ground organizations— working with people dealing with poverty, hunger and homelessness—and began distributing larger grants to fewer speci c recipients.

e transition was the result of an edict from the United Way of America to pivot its national funding model, including shifting from guaranteeing permanent funding status for groups to a two-year request-for-proposal (RFP) cycle.

“Over the past few decades, United Way has been challenged with the idea that its approach is stale and that by adding a layer between donors and the ultimate recipient organization, people have lost touch of the overall mission,” said Robert Fischer, director of the master’s and nonpro t management at Mandel School of Applied Social Sciences at Case Western Reserve University.

“Previously the idea was that once you’re in, you’re in forever, and being a United Way agency used to mean that you were guaranteed funding year after year,” he said. “At some point, with that, your budget has no room for innovation because you’re committed to the same organizations over time.”

e strategic move was also an economic one, as over the last dozen years, United Ways across the country have seen signi cant drops in donations, including in revenue generated by somewhat infamous annual workplace campaigns.

e “shaking of the can at o ces,” as Fisher refers to it, was an

aggressive and often successful way to raise funds, but it resulted in many employees feeling compelled rather than excited to donate.

Some work campaigns meant that low-level employees were asked to give beyond their means or wants, Fischer added, or they would face the ire of their employers who used days o work or the ability to dress down on Fridays as motivation to give set amounts.

“Over time, I think many employers saw it as a way to champion their own philanthropic efforts by taking credit for what their employees were doing,” Fischer said.

In its heyday, the Greater Cleveland workplace campaign brought in tens of millions of dollars a year. In 2015, about $40 million was raised from the campaign. But giving slowed down, bringing in $35 million in 2016 when after a century of raising funds exclusively through the annual workplace campaign, the United Way looked to include other sources for donations.

at trend has continued with total revenue, according to the public 990 lings for Greater Cleveland’s United Way, which show revenue is down more than $6 million in 2021 from 2020, with 82% coming from public campaigns in 2021 as compared to 87% in 2020.

Last year, bolstered by a $52.5 million donation targeted at addressing lead exposure in the city from the Cleveland Clinic Foundation, United Way raised a record $82.3 million, with other major gifts from foundations and corporations to address poverty reduction in three areas of combating generational poverty with about $26 million coming from other donations including the workplace campaign.

In 2019, as a consequence of those lower revenues and overall structural changes, Napoli announced a controversial major restructuring of the organization, eliminating a dozen full-time positions and shifting to a poverty elimination mission while also announcing a new data mining initiative.

Jordan is now eshing out her predecessor’s ideas. is year,

United Way will use data from its 211 HelpLink—a free social service assistance for callers in Greater Cleveland’s ve-county radius—as a metric for the upcoming two-year grant cycle to determine what funding is needed and what will have the greatest impact.

e helpline is supported by a database of programs and organizations that provide support and assistance for items like food, legal and housing assistance. In 2022, it received 160,000 calls from the United Way’s service area.

“We have more than 18,000 resources in our database, and not only is it a heck of a database, but it is an incredible source of insights and analytics,” Jordan said.

“When residents call in it creates a data that she said can be used to do not only inform funding decision-making but can be shared with other philanthropic and research partners.”

at data ensures that the programs have a positive and meaningful e ect on the communities in need but, she adds, it cannot be used in a vacuum.

“It is important who’s in the room when we’re reading those trends and coming up with insights. We need to be sure that what we’re doing is pushing upward trends or mitigating negative trends because we have to admit that sometimes that hasn’t been done,” Jordan said.

Changing the system that creates barriers to work, health and home ownership, which are crucial elements of positive economic mobility, Jordan contends, is often about changing how “people” work in those systems.

“We really think the big changes have to come from public policy, employer practices, business practices, and we’re excited to work with our partners on that,” Jordan said.

is transition for the United Way, which is part of Jordan’s new leadership plan, also benets from the recent wave of leadership change in the region which she says comes at a unique moment in time.

“I see the new leadership, the new ways of working, in all corners of the community and it’s very exciting,” Jordan said.

“Everyone that I talk to and work within the civic space, in the corporate space, in the public space, have their own way of talking about economic equity and mobility but I think we’re all really aiming towards some of the same things—maybe for the rst time in a long time,” she added.

“We really think the big changes have to come from public policy, employer practices, business practices, and we’re excited to work with our partners on that.”

Sharon Sobol Jordan, United Way of Greater Cleveland’s president and CEO

city-commissioned report recommending what to do with the land.

Ogbu’s not disclosing details until the city has reviewed, approved and released her report, but she said the site o ers many possibilities because of its location, history and sheer size.

“It really is the size of a neighborhood,” she said.

But the site should become more than just another development, she says. e site needs to honor its own past, which includes shunting aside hundreds of Black residents and Blackowned businesses when it was built in the 1970s, dividing both their old neighborhoods and the city.

Ogbu is also clear as to what she thinks the underlying mission should be for a site plan. “It’s to create a site that honors the rich cultural history of its past, acknowledges what was lost and the harm that was caused, and looks to create a future in which everyone bene ts, but particularly those who were harmed in the past.”

Making such recommendations is what Ogbu was hired to do. It’s also how she’s built her reputation. One of her bestknown works, NOW Hunter’s Point in San Francisco, also entailed the redesign of space formerly used for infrastructure.

In that case, it was a former power plant, rather than a highway. But Hunter’s Point, like Akron’s Innerbelt, was once a Black neighborhood. And both sites have a lot of stories to tell.

ere might be more pain lingering at Akron’s site, though. It was wrested from the city’s Black community, which lost many homes and businesses when they were displaced for a new highway that didn’t even end up being used enough to justify keeping it.

Like she did at Hunter’s Point, Ogbu said she spent a lot of her time in Akron talking to area residents, learning about the site’s past, and gathering stories that can be told so that visitors know what happened there in the past. at wasn’t easy, she said.

“ e record-keeping of the old neighborhood was not robust or not publicly accessible,” Ogbu said. “I struggled to nd information. And in talking to former residents, I found that after the neighborhood was destroyed, a lot of people didn’t talk about it. It was just too painful.”

Ogbu talked to more than 1,000 residents through in-person focus groups, ward meetings, online surveys and one-on-one discussions to hear their stories.

“We really tried to make sure it was weighted toward former residents and business owners of the area,” she said. “ e people linked to the site’s past should be the ones who have the most to say about the area’s future.”

“Liz is a fantastic urban plan-

ner. I’m really looking forward to seeing her thoughts on this after all the time she spent here,” said James Hardy, now running unopposed for Akron City Council in Ward 8.

Expect Ogbu’s recommendations to the city to include ways to honor residents’ memories and incorporate them into the site.

“One of the things I heard from former residents of the area was that what’s important to them is not that just that they’re made whole again, but what about all those people left behind,” said Ogbu.

She notes that residents told her stories of lost neighbors, churches, businesses and all sorts of other social connections that were shoved aside and paved over when the highway was built.

“So, what are things that can be done to make sure that they bene t from the future of what’s coming?” at’s a critical question the site should address, she said.

e site could also include attached programs, she suggests, such as a fund that would help those a ected by the Innerbelt to rebuild lost wealth by buying or renovating homes in the area.

But the site should be more than a historical tribute to its own past. Given its size, her report will suggest the city can do much more with it, Ogbu said.

“It (the report) has everything from what are the physical recommendations, like what streets to connect or whether to ll in the highway, to programming,” she said.

at will include suggestions for development, which Ogbu said many residents she spoke to said they wanted to see at the site. But residents don’t want to see it used just for housing, or to be dominated by commercial buildings.

“What I heard from most people is the desire for a mixed-use development, rather than a single-use development,” Ogbu said. Ogbu is not opposed to using the land for recreation but said that should be done on a temporary basis. It might be a good idea, too, because developing the site will likely take ve years or more, she said.

But for the site’s ultimate use, she thinks the city should aim higher.

“I have no authority other than to give recommendations. But you’re dealing with 30 acres — that’s like a Central Park-level park,” Ogbu said. “Akron has a lot of parks. I don’t know that, if you built a park at that scale, if it would be viable.”

She suggests the site could be a new neighborhood to replace, at least in part, the one that was lost, a proposal many residents echoed. And a neighborhood could have many di erent components.

“ ey felt like a neighborhood was lost and so a neighborhood is what needs to be created,” Ogbu said of the feedback she got. “But it can’t be a high-end neighborhood, it has to be for them. I’ve also heard from people who would like to see a commercial corridor there.”

e site also needs to support the neighborhoods that border it, including downtown where the Bowery and some other new residential developments have the Innerbelt site immediately behind them.

“Right now, that site basically pops up between downtown and West Akron and, in many ways, it has to be something that connects both of those communities,” Ogbu said.

Her approach to the site represents a new way of thinking for Akron, and certainly a departure from the way city leaders approached land use decades ago when the Innerbelt was conceived.

he’s not surprised to hear what they might entail.

He thinks she’s already helped the city at the site, too.

“Liz’s work, I think, contributed mightily to the city getting a USDOT grant of a million dollars,” Hardy said, referring to a Reconnecting Communities program grant that Akron was awarded in March.

“She has already created a real opportunity for the city,” Hardy said, by showing the feds that Akron is serious about redressing the mistakes of the past in ways that reconnect urban neighborhoods split by past developments.

Like any major development project with civic involvement, Hardy expects the development of the innerbelt site to be at least somewhat contentious.

But he said he’s hopeful that Ogbu’s report will show that the city is taking a thoughtful approach to the matter and, hopefully, galvanize residents.

“We need a framework the community can rally around in terms of what to do in terms of that site,” Hardy said.

But she was hired to bring a fresh approach and to make the city think in new ways, said James Hardy, the city’s former deputy mayor for integrated development. He is the person who suggested the city hire her.

While he’s not seen her report’s recommendations yet, Hardy said

at’s what Ogbu said she’s provided the city: a framework. Nothing’s been decided yet, and she knows there’s much work to be done and more input to be gathered before a shovel is turned at the site.

“ ings have yet to be planned,” Ogbu said. “ ere’s still a whole master planning process that has to take place.”

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The Innerbelt highway that cuts through downtown has been slated for redevelopment since it was shut down in 2018. | DAN SHINGLER

Liz Ogbu

Tax group oats using Ohio’s record rainy-day fund for property tax credit

Kim Palmer

An Ohio House and Senate companion bill requiring county auditors to use a three-year property value average in hopes of mitigating tax hikes — as high as 40% in some counties — is coming under re from a state association that represents county auditors

Instead of implementing the

proposals that would restructure how Ohio’s 88 counties determine home values for tax purposes, the County Auditor’s Association of Ohio (CAAO) is oating alternative ways to help mitigate hefty tax bills, including using one-time federal funds or tapping into the state’s rainy-day savings.

Using the state’s $700 million-plus in existing unencumbered Ameri-

can Rescue Plan Act cash or part of Ohio’s nearly $4 billion rainy-day fund, also known as the Budget Stabilization Fund, to create a credit disbursed to owners with property tax increases would help the vast majority of residential property owners facing 2024 home value increases, said Matt Nolan, Warren County auditor and CAAO property tax committee co-chair.

PEOPLE ON THE MOVE

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Ancora is happy to announce that Jordan Green has joined the rm’s Employee Bene ts team in Westlake as an Account Manager. Jordan will assist the team with client management, bene ts administration and education. Prior to joining Ancora, Jordan was an assistant client services specialist at Todd Associates. She has also held positions in retail sales earlier in her career. Jordan was a Dean’s List honoree while earning a Bachelor of Arts degree in Sociology from Cleveland State University.

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In early 2023, a record $727 million, 8.5% of general revenues from 2022, was transferred into the rainy-day fund.

A tax credit that could be applied to bills that already have been calculated would be more realistic, considering time constraints, and address what could possibly be a devastating shortfall in revenue for local governments, Nolan said at an

Oct. 3 Ohio Senate Ways and Means Committee hearing on the issue.

“As we sit here on Oct. 3, any change in the valuation process would be an unprecedented disaster for the tax billing process,” Nolan said.

“Redoing this process under different rules would be impossible if we are to get the tax bills out in December and January when they are traditionally sent. is would result in bills and collections happening much later than usual,” he said.

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Nolan said his organization also is concerned about unprecedented increases in property taxes. But he warned against using a process “not approved by any appraisal organization or expert” and a ecting a property’s true market value which could have future repercussions for property owners.

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Ancora

We are happy to announce that Molly Neitzel has joined Ancora’s Property and Casualty insurance team in Westlake as a Junior Client Services Manager. Molly will assist the team with day-to-day operations and help provide excellent service to clients. She previously has served as an intern in the Athletic Department at Saint Vincent Saint Mary High School in Akron. Molly earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Sports Studies with a concentration in Sports Management from the University of Akron.

Crystal Clinic welcomes orthopaedic surgeons Brian C.W. Law, M.D. and Nathan Rech, D.O Both are boardcerti ed and fellowshiptrained in foot and ankle conditions. With more than 12 years of experience at a Level 1 trauma center, Dr. Law specializes in total ankle replacement, trauma and fracture care, deformity correction, joint preservation and arthroscopy. He sees patients in Independence, Solon, and Warren. Dr. Rech has a special interest in total ankle replacement, minimally invasive surgery, bunion correction, athletic injuries, and fracture management. He sees patients in Fairlawn, Green and Canton. They are members of several medical societies, including the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons.

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McDonald Hopkins is pleased to announce that Maria Carr has been elected to the rm’s membership. Maria focuses her practice on corporate restructuring, commercial bankruptcy, business counseling, and creditors’ rights matters. As a Member in the rm’s Strategic Advisory and Restructuring Department, she counsels businesses and duciaries in Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings, state or federal receiverships, out-of-court workouts, or other insolvency proceedings and commercial matters.

The Firm welcomed partner Jonathan Wolnik to its Business Practice. Wolnik counsels individuals and businesses on federal, state and local tax compliance. He supports corporate clients with complex mergers and acquisitions, organizational structuring, transaction guidance, and regulatory compliance. Wolnik earned recognition from both Super Lawyers Rising Stars and Best Lawyers Ones to Watch. He earned his J.D. from The University of Akron School of Law and an MBA and B.S.B.A. from John Carroll.

“While repeated band-aids and pet bills have made Ohio’s property tax bill incredibly complicated, at its heart, there are only three pieces to it. ere are values. ere are rates. And there are state credits,” Nolan said. “ e CAAO opinion is that the only realistic and proper options at this point in time are to quickly adjust the rate or state credit side of the equation.”

One member of the committee, Sen. Louis Blessing III (R-Columbus), said the tax credit could work as an emergency measure while the tax code is re-evaluated and permanent solutions are put forward.

“We will be back in the same position next year and the year after that and the year after that if we don’t start addressing what caused the valuations to be so high to begin with,” he said. “ ere is the issue of tax shifting. is group is exempted and this group is exempted, and it becomes an eroding taxpayer base.”

Crystal Clinic Orthopaedic Center

Orthopaedic surgeon, Craig Siesel, M.D., has joined Crystal Clinic Orthopaedic Center. A graduate of Northeast Ohio Medical University, Dr. Siesel specializes in hip and knee replacement surgery. His interests include computerassisted hip and knee replacement, minimally invasive anterior approach total hip replacement, partial knee replacement, revision hip and knee replacement surgery, and rapid recovery protocols, including same-day discharge. Dr. Siesel sees patients in Hudson and Kent.

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McDonald Hopkins is pleased to announce that Kirstyn Wildey Fritz has been elected to the rm’s membership. Kirstyn is a tax credit nance and commercial real estate attorney with experience representing investors, developers and lenders on tax credit transactions, including federal and state historic tax credits, new markets tax credits, and renewable energy tax credits. As a Member in the Business Department, Kirstyn’s practice focuses on community development and project nancing.

MANUFACTURING

McGean

McGean is pleased to announce that Mara Gliozzi has been promoted to Executive Vice President of McGean Worldwide. She will lead all of McGean’s business groups, which include Specialty Chemicals, Met-LChek®, and Cee-Bee® Aviation. McGean CEO, Dick Whitney, Jr. said, “Mara’s remarkable tenure has seen her contribute to every facet of our business, equipping her with a unique blend of skills and experience that make her exceptionally quali ed for this pivotal role.” Congratulations, Mara!

Estimates from the Ohio Legislative Service Commission found that if measures to average property evaluations pass, tax revenue would only increase by around $63 billion over a three-year period from 2023 to 2025 instead of around $101 billion under current law. e estimates are based on 2022 tax amounts.

Lawmakers and county auditors may be eyeing the rainy-day fund as a means to help out homeowners but, even if the measure passes, Gov. Mike DeWine will have to sign o on the legislation.

e budget stabilization fund, a spokesman for DeWine said, is “onetime money for a speci c type of rainy day,” and there are questions about whether higher property taxes t the criteria or are a one-time need.

e rainy-day funds are set aside during good economic times to protect the state budget from cyclical changes that occur during poor economic times, he added.

DeWine’s o ce is reviewing both Ohio House Bill 187 and Senate Bill 153 as the legislation moves through the committee process. If the measure passes and lawmakers dedicate monies as an appropriation the governor could always use a line-item veto to stop the measure.

“ ere are many other groups that want to use the rainy-day fund for programs but that is not the purpose of the fund,” DeWine’s spokesman said.

Rech

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